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PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 
BY HENRY EDWARD TRALLE 


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PSYCHOLOGY 
OF LEADERSHIP _ 


BY | 
4 
HENRY EDWARD ‘TRALLE 6/04 si 


~~. 






6é 66 
AUTHOR OF DYNAMICS OF TEACHING,’’ STORY-TELLING 
LESSONS,” ETC, 





THE CENTURY CO. 
New York &£ London 


Copyright, 1925, by 
HENRY EDWARD TRALLE 


PRINTED IN VU. 8S. A. 


Dedicated 


TO MY PARENTS, HENRY AND CATHERINE ELIZABETH 
TRALLE, WHO, BY EXAMPLE AND PRECEPT, 
TAUGHT ME MANY OF THE TRUTHS 


PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK. 


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FOREWORD 


I have been asked, on many occasions, by many 
individuals, to write this book, and the appreci- 
ative response accorded its contents, when pre- 
sented in the form of lectures in schools and 
conferences, encourages me to hope that these 
laws of leadership may attain a wider usefulness 
in this printed form. 

The book is an attempt to present the assured. 
results of scientific psychology briefly, clearly, 
dynamically, and inspirationally, for the assist- 
ance of maturer young people and those adults 
who are not too old or too wise to learn and to 
grow, and it is hoped that the personal note so 
frequently struck in these pages will serve to 
enhance the practical value of their intimate 
messages. 

If somebody had done for me, twenty-five years 
ago, what I, in this book, have tried to do for 
others, I think I should have been deeply grateful, 
and that I should have been saved from many 
mistakes and failures. 

Hunzgy Epwarp TRALLE. 
New York City, 
February 2, 1925. 


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~CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I From WuHence LEADERS 


II Instincts AND INTELLIGENCE 
III Prrsonauiry Factors . 

IV Svusconscious RESOURCES . 

V L&arnina to REMEMBER 

PVR VIG TETAS © OSE eye, hiss oh ge 
VII Hasrr INvEsSTMENTS 
VIII Custom anp Progress 

IX Heap Tonics mele 

X Tue Wnou To WIN. .. . 

SELECTED REFERENCES 


. 117 
. 140 
. 162 
. 185 
. 205 
~« 229 





PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


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PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


CHAPTER I 
FROM WHENCE LEADERS 


A leader is an earthly star. He is the one 
human being in a hundred who shines out through 
the insufficient luminosity of human medioc- 
rity and lights up the dark places of social ob- 
security. 

Leaders are the illuminators of the world. 
Sometimes we call them geniuses, though the 
word ‘‘geniuses’’ usually is reserved for the lead- 
ers of the leaders, the brightest of the earthly 
stars. 

I shall hang what I have to say about geniuses 
upon the five poetic pegs of some lines I wrote a 
few years ago. 


From WHENcE GENIUSES 


From whence, tell me, do geniuses spring, 
The ones who cause the world to swing? 
They come from the crowds, and not from the 


clouds. 
3 


4 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


What magic touch aroused their souls, 
And urged them on to worthy goals? 
A mother’s wise love, inspired from above. 


Who fanned the spark of genius there, 
And made it burn so bright and fair? 
A teacher with skill to stir and to thrill. 


How chance they to be known to fame, 
And called throughout the world by name? 
They ’ve learned how to work, and never to shirk. . 


How do they reach the glorious heights? 
How do they win the world’s great fights? 
Achieved through their pluck, and not any luck. 


I. GENIUS IS DEMOCRATIC 


From whence, tell me, do geniuses spring, 

The ones who cause the world to swing? 

They come from the crowds, and not from the 
clouds. 


The world’s leaders come from the crowds, and 
not from the clouds. They may come from 
almost any home, anywhere, any time, without 
giving notice to anybody. Without doubt, the 
leaders of the next generation are very close to 
us now, if only we had eyes with which to see them. 

Passing through a park, in a Mid-Western city, 
I came upon a bronze statue of heroic proportions 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 5 


—a tall, gaunt, rugged figure portrayed in a long 
Prince Albert coat and uncreased trousers, the 
big feet encased in rough boots, and one big hand 
folded over the other—and, as I looked into that 
virile, serious face that seemed to have written 
in it the history of all the ages, I stood with un- 
covered head, and asked, ‘‘From whence did you 
come, O Statesman Genius, savior of the Union 
and emancipator of a race?”’ 

And a voice long hushed seemed to answer, ‘‘I 
came from the crowds, and not from the clouds.’’ 

‘“You did indeed,’’ I said, ‘‘and I once saw, on 
a Southern hillside, the little log cabin out of 
which you came.”’ 

Genius seems to run in some families; but, 
sooner or later, it seems to run out again. Why 
does it run out, and how did it run in, in the first 
place? Nobody seems to be able to answer either 
of these questions. 

It is said that fifty members of the Bach family, 
in five generations, were notable musicians. How 
did music get into that family in the first place, 
and why did it get out after a while? 

We need, of course, to take account of our an- 
cestors, though some wag has said that most of 
the old ‘‘family trees’’ seem to be producing 
‘‘nuts’’ these days. However that may be, it is 
well established that heredity alone cannot ade- 
quately explain genius, if we mean organic hered- 
ity, that is, all that was in the original germ 
plasm, not even when we take account of atavism, 


6 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


by which is meant the sudden appearance in a 
descendant of some characteristic of a remote 
ancestor, as when a red head suddenly bobs up, 
after four or five generations of black heads. 

There were, in the original germ plasm which 
later became a human being, certain physical char- 
acteristics, as height or shortness, black hair 
or red hair, brown eyes or blue eyes, and a nose 
that turned to the right or the left or up—or that 
just got started and did not turn any way 
particularly. 

Were there also, in that plasmic beginning of 
the genius, this leader of whom we are thinking, 
certain individual mental characteristics that con- 
stituted a basis for genius—musical, literary, 
artistic, oratorical, mechanical? I suppose no- 
body knows absolutely. It has been generally 
so held. It seems to be clearly established that 
it is impossible to make a musician, for instance, 
out of any individual selected at random. At the 
same time, I think it likely also, though it is not 
now generally so held, that there was a sufficient 
plasmic basis for gemus of some sort in every 
normal human being, and that he may become 
one of the leaders among men, provided he has 
a favorable social heredity—home, school, and 
community influences. 

So far as organic heredity is concerned, it may 
be found, when we know more about it, that any 
differences in bases for genius may be due not to 
individual differences in mental characteristics 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 7 


but to differences in the strength of certain in- 
stincts and in the driving power of the essential 
life energy. 

In any case, we need to give attention both to 
eugenics, seeing to it that human beings are well 
born, and to euthencs, seeing to it that they are 
well environed. } 

Surely it is more important that we have well- 
born babies than it is that we have well-born 
chickens, pups, kittens, calves, and pigs! Some 
years ago, a friend of mine paid twenty thousand 
dollars for two pigs, on account of their eugenics, 
and the investment proved to be a profitable one. 

We need, as a people, to take eugenics seriously, 
and to invest more largely with a view to a better- 
born generation of human beings. It is impera- 
tive, moreover, that we make larger investments 
in euthenics—in educational institutions, in laws 
that protect childhood and youth, in wholesome 
recreation, in non-commercialized amusements, in 
socialized churches, in religious education. 

It is more than probable that almost any com- 
monwealth of the United States has in it more 
geniuses in possibility than have been developed 
in all the world in all the centuries, if only the 
rest of us had the prophetic insight to see there 
what God sees, and to codperate with Him in 
faith and intelligence and courage. 

It would be a mistake also for any of us adults 
to say: ‘‘All that may be true, but what about 
me? Both my organic heredity and my social 


8 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


heredity have been wrong, and it is too late for 
me to hope to become a leader among men.”’ 

In the first place, the chances are that the hered- 
ities may have been better than we realize, and 
besides history is full of refutations of such pessi- 
mistic assumptions. Many a man has refused to 
be bound by his ancestors or to be thwarted by 
his environment. He has bound his ancestors and 
conquered his surroundings, building his own 
world from within by the creative power of per- 
sonality, and has taken his place among illustri- 
ous leaders—sometimes after his hair has begun 
to turn gray or even to turn out. He has become 
an earth-born star to light the ways of men up 
the rugged steeps of life. 


Il. THE HOME’S CONTRIBUTION 


What magic touch aroused their souls, 
And urged them on to worthy goals? 
A mother’s wise love inspired from above. 


It is to the home that we must turn if we would 
uncover the deepest secrets of genius. In the 
early life of every great leader, there was the 
potent influence of a mother or a father, or both— 
or some one who took the place of one or both. 

Right influences in the school and community 
may make leadership possible despite the lack of 
proper home training, and sometimes in the face 
of bad home training, but it is only the right kind 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 9 


of home that can make possible the highest type 
of leadership. 

In some cases, the home influences are so power- 
ful that these develop exceptional leadership 
with little or no help from the schools. 

At six years of age, Thomas A. Edison was 
sent to school, and always was at the foot of the 
class. At the end of three months, he was sent 
home by his teacher, with a note saying: ‘‘Keep 
this boy at home. He is too stupid to stay in 
school.’’ 

The mother said to herself: ‘‘My boy is not 
stupid. It is simply that the teacher does not 
understand him. I will teach him myself, and I 
will show the world that my son has brains 
enough.’’ 

So, during the next eight years, with love, with 
patience, and with intelligence, this mother gave 
this boy practically all the schooling he ever had. 
She taught him to read rapidly, with pleasure, 
with understanding, and with appropriation of 
the essential values of what he read. She taught 
him to think for himself. 

At eleven years of age, the boy had gathered 
together two hundred bottles, after persuading his 
mother to allow him to use some shelves and a 
bench for a ‘‘laboratory’’; and, in order to make 
sure that no one would meddle with his materials, 
he wrote two hundred ‘‘poison’’ labels, and pasted 
them upon the bottles. 

After a while, when he became a newsboy on a 


10 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


railroad, young Edison spent his spare time be- 
tween ‘‘runs’’ in a library; and, not knowing what 
he wanted to read, he would tackle a shelf of 
books, no matter on what subject, and read every- 
thing that was on that shelf, and then would begin 
on another shelf. 

One of the most successful educators in Amer- 
ica is Angelo Patri, born in Italy, author of the 
book, ‘‘A Schoolmaster in the Great City,’’ in 
which he says: ‘‘I remember sitting with the 
family and the neighbors’ families about the fire- 
place, while Father, night after night, told us 
stories of the Knights of the Crusades or re- 
counted the glories of the heroes of proud Italy. 
How he could tell a story! His voice was strong, 
and soft, and soothing, and he had just sufficient 
power of exaggeration to increase the attractive- 
ness of the tale. We could see the soldiers he 
told us about pass before us in all their struggles 
and sorrows and triumphs. Back and forth he 
marched them into Asia Minor, across Sicily, and 
into the castles of France, Germany, and England. 
We listened eagerly and came back each night 
ready to be thrilled and inspired again by the 
spirit of the good and the great. Then came the 
journey over the sea, and the family with the 
neighbors’ families were part of the life of New 
York. We were Little Italy.’’ 

It was not only that the spiritual values of the 
stories got into this boy’s life and made a man of 
him, but that unconsciously he was being trained 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 11 


in the art of story-telling, the one best method of 
teaching, and thus was being saved from the for- 
malism and didacticism that afflict so many 
teachers and schools. 

The great military hero of the Southland, 
Robert E. Lee, owed his military genius to his 
cultured mother rather than to his warrior 
father, the fighting ‘‘Light-horse Harry.’’ 

In a Southern library, I found a Lee biography 
in which it is recorded that, for several years, 
during the boyhood of Robert, while his father 
was in the West Indies, seeking to regain his 
shattered health, this boy was with his mother, 
in her loneliness, for several hours each day, dur- 
ing which time she told him the stories of the 
achievements of the great men of history, and of 
the exploits of the military heroes of the world, 
including those of his own father. 

Thus Robert’s mind was turned toward things 
military; his ambition was stirred; he was de- 
veloped into one of the greatest military geniuses 
of alltimes. It was during those significant years 
with his mother that there were also developed in 
him, to a remarkable degree, those Christian at- 
titudes and ideals from which he never swerved. 

Many other examples might be cited. When 
any one of us begins to look back to find the 
occasion of the best in his life, he is conscious 
of the ‘‘magic touch’’ of some one who lived and 
loved when he was a child. 

If this be true, every parent should be an earn- 


12 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


est, persevering student of child psychology, 
the accumulated common sense of the ages with 
reference to child nature and child training, the 
composite wisdom of many parents and teachers. 
Every. father ought to know at least as much 
about the inside of his boy’s head as he knows 
about the inside of a Ford or a Packard. Every 
mother ought to know at least as much about 
child nature as she knows about flower nature or 
chicken nature. 

It ought to be exceedingly encouraging to some 
of us who have not realized our dreams of leader- 
ship to consider that we may make it possible for 
sons and daughters to reach the promised lands 
which we ourselves have never been able to enter. 


Ill. THE POWER OF THE TEACHER 


Who fanned the spark of genius there, 
And made it burn so bright and fair? 
A teacher with skill to stir and to thrill. 


We shall never be able properly to estimate 
and to appreciate the importance of the teacher 
in the development of leadership. The leaders 
are prone to assume that their leadership is due 
to their inherent abilities and their own efforts 
alone; and they do not seem to realize that their 
native endowments would have remained latent 
and inoperative, for the most part, had it not been 
for the teachers who ‘‘fanned the spark.”’ 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 13 


So quiet and non-spectacular are the learning 
processes, so hidden from the possessor are the 
springs of thought and action in the depths of 
consciousness, and so unobtrusive are the dynamic 
urges of the teaching act that the teacher never 
looms large in the thinking of the taught. 

A reputable teacher of dramatics, after many 
years of success in developing actors and dra- 
matic readers, committed suicide, in New York 
City, a few years ago, because his students would 
attribute their successes to their own brilliance 
and would neglect to give him his due share of 
credit. 

In the experience of any thoughtful leader, who 
is given at all to intelligent self-analysis, his 
teachers appear larger, the farther he gets away 
from them. 

My teacher of English in college was an en- 
thusiastic young man, about twenty-four years 
of age; and he seemed to take a special interest 
in me, and once arranged an extra class for my 
benefit. He helped me to appreciate the beauties 
and possibilities of our language and literature, 
and fired me with an ambition to speak and to 
write clear, vigorous English. 

My debt to this teacher of English, I now see, 
is incalculable; but at the time I took him for 
granted, and had no adequate appreciation of 
what he was doing for me. 

Twenty-five years later—a few months ago— 
I was lecturing in the town in which this teacher 


14 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


is now an honored professor of English in a 
reputable college, and I said: ‘‘There sits in this 
audience, this evening, a man who, more than a 
quarter of a century ago, was one of my teachers 
in college. He taught me to love my native 
tongue, and to appreciate its literature. I owe 
to him an inestimable debt of gratitude; but 
never during these years, until now, I am ashamed 
to say, have I ever told him so. I might have 
found his address, and I might have written to 
him occasionally some words of appreciation; 
but I did not do it, and this tardy acknowledgment 
and apology comes too late to be appreciated by 
him. It can only embarrass him, I know, but at 
least I have somewhat purged my own soul; and, 
it may be, have helped all of us into a more 
adequate appreciation of our teachers.”’ 

There was another young professor, who got 
me interested in history and economies, and who 
taught me the uses of a library, and how to read 
an average of two worth-while books a week for 
the remainder of a lifetime—and to do this dur- 
ing the rest and recreational periods of a busy 
existence. And to this teacher I have only re- 
cently said, ‘‘Thank you.’’ 

There was a third teacher who taught me how 
to think for myself, and to let my thinking begin 
where the thinking of others leaves off. There 
are no words in our richest of languages that 
are strong enough to express even the smallest 
part of the appreciation I now have for this 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 15 


teacher; and it is too late even to attempt it, for 
his prophetic voice is no longer heard among men, 
and Uncle Sam’s carriers do not reach the pleas- 
ant place of his present abode. 

Then there was the teacher who led me out from 
the musty places of metaphysical psychology, in 
the department of philosophy, into the broad, 
bright spaces of genetic, experimental, social, 
religious, and practical psychology. The monu- 
ment I have erected to him in my heart can never 
be high enough to do him justice. 

I must mention one other teacher, the teacher 
who guided my feet in the pious paths in which 
they had been placed by my parents, and who led 
me to dedicate my life to character building, 
putting the service motive at the front in my 
thinking so successfully that the spiritual entities 
and not mere things have been preéminent in all 
my experience through all the years. 

Could any amount of money ever pay for the 
service that teacher did me in keeping me from 
worshiping the money gods? No, not in a trillion 
of eons. 

Of course, not all of my teachers were good 
teachers. I had my share of poor ones, but I 
cannot hold any grudge against them, because 
I cannot remember any of them. I remember 
only my good teachers, and shall remember them 
with everlasting gratitude. 

The real need for all of us, after we grow up, 
is to realize that school commencement never was 


16 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


intended to be the end of education, but rather 
the beginning of a better education, and to con- 
tinue to be students all our lives, always learn- 
ing from the world’s best teachers through a 
persistent and discriminating use of books and 
journals, through membership in educative organ- 
izations, and through personal contact with 
teachers in night schools, in summer schools, and 
in extension classes. We never should consider 
that we are educated, but always only in the proc- 
ess of being educated. es 


IV. WORK AS A FACTOR 


How chance they to be known to fame, 
And called throughout the world by name? 
They ’ve learned how to work and never to shirk. 


Some one said to Thomas A. Hdison one day, 
‘‘T told a friend the other day that I consider you 
the greatest genius in the world.’’ 

‘‘Genius!’’ said Mr. Edison. ‘‘Do you know 
what genius is? Genius is one per cent inspira- 
tion and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.’’ 

Another asked Mr. Edison, ‘‘How do you go 
about inventing anything?’’ 

He said, ‘‘I first find out all that everybody 
knows about the subject, collecting and reading 
everything concerning it, with the help of my as- 
sistants; and then I go at it, keeping my mind 
upon it and experimenting for from twelve to 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 17 


twenty hours a day, and I stick to it until I get 
what I want.’’ 

When questioned further, he said, ‘‘ Before suc- 
ceeding with my electric light, I tested six thou- 
sand vegetable growths for an ideal substance for 
use as a filament inside the glass tube. Hvery 
nook of the world was searched, and I finally 
Pexo) na 

Mr. Edison once said to a young man, ‘‘ Never 
look at the clock except to be sure that you get to 
work early enough in the morning.”’ 

One of the great universities tried for three 
years in succession to get Mr. Edison to come to 
the school in order to have a degree conferred 
upon him, and every time he would say: ‘‘Sorry 
I cannot come. Too busy. Keep it for later.’’ 
When a university in England wanted to confer 
a degree upon him, he said: ‘‘What! Cross the 
ocean for that? ‘Too busy, too busy.’’ 

Mr. Edison is quoted as having said, recently: 
‘‘T do not approve of the present-day college 
graduate. My main objection against the col- 
lege graduate is that he objects to work, especially 
when it is dirty work. He does not want a job 
with much work to it. He expects to be appointed 
foreman at the end of his sixth week. Most of 
the men working for me have never gone to 
college.’’ 

This statement raised a storm of protest on the 
part of the friends of the colleges, and most of 
us feel that it is not quite fair, for the fact is 


18 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


that the majority of those who are afraid of 
work never saw a college; but at the same time 
we must concur in Mr. Edison’s insistent empha- 
sis on work as essential to success in every voca- 
tion. ‘‘Everything that is worth while,’’ as he 
puts it, ‘‘is hard to get. If the answer to any life 
problem is easy, it is wrong.’’ 

However large we may make plasmic genius, 
we must award the prize to plodding genius. 

The theory and the practice of all the ages unite 
in saying to us that the highest innate genius must 
remain forever in the obscurity of the unknown 
unless it is discovered and brought to light and 
developed by hard, persistent work. 


V. MORALE AN ESSENTIAL 


How do they reach the glorious heights? 
How do they win the world’s great fights? 
Achieved through their pluck, and not any luck. 


Every successful leader believes in himself and 
in his work. He faces his task with hopeful un- 
afraidness. He has courage, pluck, morale. 

It is said, when our soldiers landed in France, 
to participate in the World War, a French woman 
of prominence, said: ‘‘I do not wish to see these 
soldiers. They are too few, and they are not 
trained; they cannot really help.’’ But, because 
of her husband’s official position, she was present 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 19 


at the grand review; and afterward she said, ‘‘I 
had not been watching the American soldiers 
marching by for ten minutes until I knew I had 
been mistaken in my thinking about them, for I 
saw that their coming meant victory. It was in 
their faces and in their stride. They had come 
over to win the war. They fully expected to do 
it. They were on their way to Berlin.’’ 

Where did our soldiers get that morale that 
turned the tide of battle and helped the Allies to 
win? Certainly not in six months of intensive 
training alone. They had acquired it in twenty 
years of training in the American homes and 
schools, where they were taught to face coura- 
geously the facts of life and to fight cheerfully 
their daily battles with confidence in ultimate vic- 
tory. ‘‘The mental attitude,’’ says Edgar James 
Swift, ‘‘ends by altering the effects themselves. 
If a man expects a plan to succeed, the chances 
are that he will carry it through; and if one 
anticipates failure he is quite certain to be grat- 
ified.”’ 

An important part of the work of the successful 
football coach consists in developing morale in his 
team. After the great victories of Princeton over 
Harvard and Yale, a few years ago, attention was 
called to Coach Bill Roberts’s mottoes that were 
hanging on the walls of his team’s club-room. 
One of them was: ‘‘The team which won’t be 
beaten can’t be beaten.”’ 


20 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


DISCUSSION 


1. It will be my purpose, under the head of 
Discussion, at the close of each chapter, to pro- 
vide material and suggestion for interesting and 
profitable class discussion or private consid- 
eration. 

2. Prof. Albert Edward Wiggam, in his bril- 
liant book, ‘‘The New Decalogue of Science,’’ 
greatly over-emphasizes, I think, the importance 
of organic heredity, as compared with social 
heredity, apparently not realizing that, in so 
doing, he is cutting the very tap-root of educa- 
tional effort. He says, for instance, that there 
are fifty million people in this country who have 
not sufficient brains to get through our certified 
high schools. Might he not more truthfully say 
that we educators and legislators have not brains 
enough to make adequate educational provision 
for them and to see that they do get through our 
high schools? In order to stress the importance 
of eugenics, he need not have belittled social hered- 
ity. In doing so he ignores established biological 
and psychological facts, and omits the testimony 
of certain reputable biologists whose experiments 
with the lower forms of life tend to show the 
power of environment upon life in its very begin- 
nings. He defines eugenics as ‘‘a: method or- 
dained of God and seated in natural law for 
securing better parents for our children, in order 
that they may be born more richly endowed, men- 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 21 


tally, morally and physically, for the human 
struggle.’’ This definition is quite adequate, and 
all of us ought to agree that eugenics is a highly 
desirable method of race improvement. At the 
same time we ought to see that the very making of 
eugenics effective in practice is dependent chiefly 
on education, a fact which Professor Wiggam 
tacitly acknowledges in the very act of writing his 
book; for books are an important part of the 
method of education. 

3. The physicians, Drs. Walsh and Foote, in 
their book, ‘‘Safeguarding Children’s Nerves,’’ 
say, in the chapter entitled ‘‘The Bogy of Hered- 
ity’’: ‘‘There is a tendency in present-day 
science to do away with even more of the bogy 
of heredity than ever had been the case before. 
We heard so much of the Jukes family and the 
Killikats and others, and how much heredity 
means in making people criminals and ne’er-do- 
wells that we have been inclined to think that men 
are the representatives at best of their inheri- 
tance, the victims of heredity as it were. It was 
very much like the old-fashioned doctrine of pre- 
destination. But now we have come to realize 
that opportunity, and the individual himself, and 
his will power, may enable him within limits to 
break and change the results of heredity and 
start afresh to the great advantage of himself as 
well as of those with whom he is brought into con- 
tact. The family of Jonathan Edwards is often 
cited as an example of the opposite influence to 


22 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


that exerted in the Jukes and Killikat instances, 
but some one looked beyond Jonathan Edwards 
himself, and found that in the immediate preced- 
ing generations the family was not very exem- 
plary or indeed of the kind that might with any 
assurance have been expected to have very re- 
putable descendants.’’ 

4, Prof. C. M. Child, in the department of 
zoology in the University of Chicago, after con- 
ducting laboratory experiments with lower forms 
of animal life and plants for twenty years, con- 
cludes that environment shares equally with 
heredity from the very beginning of the life ‘‘in 
the development of the individual from the egg.’’ 
He says, ‘‘Heredity constitutes the sum total of 
the possibilities and environment determines 
which of them shall be realized in a particular 
individual.’? See Prof. Child’s book, ‘‘Physi- 
ological Foundations of Behavior.’’ 

5. For a comprehensive statement of the views 
of the hereditarians, see the first chapter in ‘‘ The 
Psychology of Childhood,’’ by Norsworthy and 
Whitley, and for a presentation of the other side 
of the question, see ‘‘Social Heredity and Social 
Evolution,’’ by Conn. 

6. In his ‘‘Psychology of Christian Life and 
Behavior,’’ W. S. Bruce, D.D., says, ‘‘ Religious 
genius is just a deep sense of the Divine Presence 
at the moral center of a man’s nature.’’ 

7. For a helpful discussion of work and play, 


FROM WHENCE LEADERS 23 


see Cabot’s ‘‘What Men Live By”’ and Patrick’s 
‘“The Psychology of Social Reconstruction.’’ 

8. George Albert Coe, in his ‘‘Law and Free- 
dom in the School,’’ says: ‘‘If parental affection 
were wise, it would give the parent no rest until 
he learned what science has to say as to the nutri- 
tion and physical care of the child; as to how 
habits are formed, and what habits need to be 
formed or avoided in childhood; how to instruct 
children of different ages concerning sex; how to 
cooperate with the day school and the church 
school in their work of teaching; how to develop 
self-guidance in the child, and how at last to 
emancipate him from parental control. If pa- 
rental affection were wise! What we see in most 
families is action, often genuinely planned action, 
based upon the fallacy that what I feel strongly 
must be so, especially if I act from affection. 
The result? Ask any teacher who knows inti- 
mately the life of children!”’ 

9. Some of the more readable and helpful books 
for parents are the following: ‘‘Mothers’ Prob- 
lems,’’ Clark; ‘‘The Healthy Child from Two to 
Seven,’’? McCarthy; ‘‘Fireside Child Study,’’ Du- 
Bois; ‘*Child Nature and Child Nurture,’’ St. 
John; ‘‘The Dawn of Character,’?’ Mumford; 
‘‘The Parent and the Child,’’ Cope; ‘‘The Psy- 
chology of Childhood,’’ Norsworthy and Whitley; 
‘‘Safeguarding Children’s Nerves,’’ Walsh and 
Foote; ‘‘Sex Education,’’ Wile; ‘‘Growth and 


24 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


Education,’’? Tyler; ‘‘Misunderstood Children,’’ 
Harrison; ‘‘Home Occupations for Boys. and 
Girls,’’ Johnston; ‘‘Religious Education in the 
Family,’’ Cope; ‘‘Short Talks with Young 
Mothers,’’? Kerley; ‘‘Child Nature and Child 
Training,’? Forbush; ‘‘Child Training,’’ Patri; 
‘‘The Job of Being a Dad,’’ Cheley; ‘‘ Brothering 
the Boy,’’ Raffety; ‘‘Making the Best of Our 
Children,’? Wood-Allen; ‘‘The Girl in Her 
Teens,’’ Slattery; ‘‘Girlhood and Character,’’ 
Moxcey; ‘‘ Being Well Born,’’ Guyer; ‘‘The High . 
School Age,’’ King; ‘‘What Ails Our Youth?”’ 
Coe; ‘‘Story Telling Lessons,’’ Tralle. 

10. Hugh Elliot, in his ‘‘Human Character,”’ 
says: ‘‘Though genius is a rare quality, it is 
probably more abundant than might be supposed, 
for the reason that in the majority of instances 
it never comes to fruition. Success in life is only 
partly due to individual qualities; for the rest, it 
is due to a favorable environment,’’ 


CHAPTER II 
INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 


Every human being is a bundle of instincts plus 
intelligence; and the greater the proportion of 
intelligence, the more really human he is, and the 
more a leader. 

No one can get rid of his instincts, but he can 
supplement and control them. Even the lower 
animals do this. Not even the dog is controlled 
by instincts alone. He directs his life through 
instincts plus intelligence. Some of our instincts 
need to be strengthened, and others need to be 
weakened. All of them need to be supplemented 
by intelligence. 

A man places himself below the dog when he 
excuses his shortcomings by saying: ‘‘I could 
not help it. I was born that way, and I am not 
to blame. Instinct was to blame. I simply acted 
naturally.’? No individual has a moral right to 
act naturally, in the sense of acting instinctively. 
Every one is under obligation to act intelligently 
and righteously. And he will do so if he avails 
himself of the resources at his command. 

‘‘An instinct,’’ following William McDougall, 


‘is an innate mental disposition that liberates and 
25 


26 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


directs psycho-physical energy, when stimulated 
by its proper object, and involves the whole organ- 
ism in a total reaction toward its goal.”’ 

I shall discuss here sixteen human instincts, 
dividing them into four general classes, which I 
shall call perpetuative, protective, progressive, 
and cooperative. Various other classifications of 
the instincts have been suggested by different psy- 
chologists, and there is no general agreement as 
to their number and nature and names. But this 
lack of agreement is serious and disturbing chiefly 
in philosophical psychology: in practical psychol- 
ogy it matters much less. 


I. PERPETUATIVE 


There are three instincts which we may call per- 
petuative, namely, food-seeking, mating, and pa- 
rental; for these make for the perpetuation of 
human beings. 


1. Food-seeking Instinct 


The strongest of all the instincts is the inborn 
mental disposition toward the seeking of food 
when hungry. Man is wisely so constituted that 
he cannot be very much interested in anything 
else when he needs food. I venture to present 
here, in summary, a composite of the wisdom of 
many writers on the subject of eating, as follows: 

(1) Eat once a day. I mean, eat one real meal 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 27 


a day, a course dinner, if that is practicable. As 
to the other meals of the day, it does not matter 
much, just so there are at least two of them, and 
provided they are light and limited in variety. 

(2) Eat what you want. Beware of the food 
faddists. If you must go on a diet, do it only 
under exceptional circumstances, on the advice 
and under the direction of a competent physician. 

(3) Hat what agrees with you. One may eat 
what another would better not eat, and the food- 
needs of the same individual may change from 
time to time. Frequently it is not something he 
is eating that disagrees with any one, but some- 
thing that he is not eating. He may need to eat 
more, and not less. Probably he needs to exer- 
cise more, so that he can safely eat more. 

(4) Hat many kinds of food. To be ‘‘finicky”’ 
in eating is a great misfortune to the eater, and 
to others. Any one can learn to like almost any- 
thing that anybody else eats if only he will taste 
it, and keep on tasting it from time to time. 
Many of us have learned to like tomatoes and 
olives and raw oysters and Casaba melons. It is 
not advisable to eat too heartily at any time, or 
to eat many kinds of food at one meal, but to 
seek a variety from day to day. 

(5) Hat with enjoyment. Make a happy busi- 
ness of eating. Get your mind off your work, and 
make play of your eating. A man whose work 
demands his attention while he eats has no work 
that is worth doing. And soon he may have none 


28 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


at all. If you are a ‘‘busy business man,’’ avoid 
the bad practice of rushing from your office to a 
club table and there trying to talk business while 
you eat. Even church executives sometimes sin 
in this way. Take time to eat, and have a good 
time at it. Spend at least an hour at dinner, and 
then do not try to work at anything until about 
thirty minutes have elapsed after finishing the 
meal. Give your food a chance, at least once 
a day, at your principal meal. The other meals 
may require less time. Light conversation and 
wholesome fun will help any meal; and will in- 
crease any individual’s ability to work, will 
enrich his personality, and will minister to 
leadership. 


2. Mating Instinct 


The second strongest of the human instincts is 
the mating instinct, and there is nothing ever 
wrong about it except when it is not properly 
supplemented with intelligence. It is the founda- 
tion of love and courtship and marriage and home- 
making. It is an important factor in effective 
leadership. Here again I venture to present, in 
a few brief statements, a precipitate of the wisdom 
of many writers on this subject. 

(1) Be charitable in your judgments of others. 
Some human beings are a hundred times more 
strongly sexed than others, and should be judged 
accordingly. On the other hand, the stronger this 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 29 


instinct in any one of us, the more necessary it is 
to supplement it with intelligence; for, if rightly 
directed, it is an element of power in personality 
and of control in leadership. 

(2) Think of sex proportionately. Let it have 
a proper place in your thinking, but not too large 
a place. Do not devote a very large proportion 
of your thinking to it, and, when you do think 
of it, remember that, while the mating instinct 
is one of the strongest of the instincts, it is 
only one of sixteen or more of the human in- 
stincts, and do not be misled by the Freudians, 
who hold, in effect, that sex largely controls 
almost all of human behavior, and who regard 
all love as sexual. Speaking of this latter 
view especially, Prof. William McDougall says: 
‘‘The sensational psychology, based on such rot- 
ten foundations as these, serves to sell the books 
which contain it by the hundred thousand; but I 
am not sure that the popular interest in psychol- 
ogy of this kind gives ground for rejoicing. It 
is useless to attempt to argue with a Freudian; 
he is a devotee of a sect, not a man of science, and, 
like all sectarian enthusiasts, he is impervious to 
the shafts of reason. If he is an unusually open- 
minded specimen, you may succeed in pinning him 
down to the admission of the fallacies by which 
the sexual dogma is defended; he will always elude 
you in the end, by retorting that Freud does not 
use the word sexual in the ordinary sense. And 
neither he nor Professor Freud himself will ever 


30 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


tell you in what sense he does use the word. The 
Freudian reasoning is in the main a peculiar proc- 
ess which can only be characterized as ‘persua- 
sion by innuendo.’ ”’ 

(3) Think of sex purely. Spend little time in 
the company of those who are perverted in their 
thinking of the mating instinct, for you cannot 
associate with such people without being influ- 
enced adversely in your own thinking. Avoid 
books and plays and pictures that distort and 
unduly magnify sex relations. Practise thinking 
of members of the opposite sex as you would like 
to have others think of those of that sex who are 
nearest and dearest to you. Consider that, from 
the selfish point of view alone, the highest pleas- 
ures that grow out of this God-given instinct are 
possible only to those who are sane in their think- 
ing about it, and who are controlled and clean in 
their relations to it. 

(4) Be absorbed in your work. Keep happily 
busy at some good life job, if you are a man, and 
thus avoid sexual temptations. Throw yourself 
into your work with whole-hearted enthusiasm. 
No loafer ever can be a good lover, and experi- 
ence the true, high thrills of a worthy love, and 
drink from the cup of unpolluted blessedness in 
one’s mate. An idle wife is a continual menace to 
herself, to her husband, and to society. 

(5) Be true to an ideal of mated love. If you 
are not married, rest in the confidence that there 
are in the world a thousand or more members of 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE ol 


the opposite sex any one of whom would make for 
you a suitable mate, and make it your business to 
find and wed one of them. In the meantime keep 
busy at your work, and hold, in sacred conti- 
nence, that which is yours alone to give, against 
the day of your destined mating. If you are 
married, then play the game according to the rules 
of God on a fifty-fifty basis, with love and loyalty 
and patience, ever fanning into brilliant blaze the 
spiritual fires on the family altar, which always 
has been the center of all the highest thinking 
and the noblest achievements of the sons and 
daughters of men and women. 

(6) Make marriage a means. Marriage never 
should be regarded as an end in itself, but only 
as a means to a higher, fuller, richer, more useful 
life. And, normally, nearly always, it should 
mean children. This brings us to a consideration 
of the next instinct. 


3. Parental Instinct 


The parental instinct is stronger in women than 
in men; but he is a poor sort of man who does not 
love children, and delight in them. She is a 
spoiled, deluded woman who does not love babies, 
and she is a fool who lavishes her parental affec- 
tions wholly upon dogs, or cats, or birds, when she 
might lavish them upon babies. A baby is not 
“much more trouble than a dog or a doglet, and 
not very much more expensive. And one healthy 


32 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


human baby is worth more than all the dogs and 
doglets that ever were held in the arms of women. 

Few of us parents, perhaps, have appreciated 
adequately the fundamental value of our children 
to ourselves. It is not simply that parenthood is 
a duty, and on the whole a very great pleasure; 
but it may be at the same time a most important 
means of self-education. The bearing and rear- 
ing of children is not only the chief business of 
life but is also the best school in life. While 
parents are training their children, they are them- 
selves being trained in the most effective way 
possible. It can scarcely be questioned that the 
headship of a family of several children reacts 
constructively on the parents’ personality and 
their possibilities for leadership. The sense of 
responsibility, the solving of family problems, the 
incentives to effort, the exchanges of affection, 
the imposed restraints, all are graduate courses in 
the greatest of universities. 


II. PROTECTIVE INSTINCTS 


Three of the human instincts may be classed as 
protective, making for the protection of the in- 
dividual and the group, namely, the combative, 
escape, and repulsion instincts. 


4. Combative Instinct 


This is the innate disposition that leads an 
individual, when aroused by anger or other emo- 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 33 


tional incitement, to get rid of any obstruction to 
any purposeful amore 

In the intelligent human being to-day, this in- 
stinct does not function so much in physical com- 
bat, in private quarrels or in war, as in the fight- 
ing of evil within and without, in the fighting of 
fears and weakness and laziness and ignorance 
within, and the fighting for ideals and causes and 
principles and children and freedom and oppor- 
tunity without. People like to follow the leader- 
ship of such a fighter. 

When any one quits fighting he has quit living, 
in any way that counts for anything. No one 
should be pugnacious, nor irascible; but at the 
same time he should be a fighter in the best sense, 
for every worth-while life is a life of combat, a 
life of struggle, a life of overcoming, and the last 
battle is never won, until the fighter is ready to 
quit, and to say, ‘‘I have fought the good fight’’— 
and then he hopes to continue in conquests be- 
yond the range of this present limited vision. 

It is this combative instinct combined with in- 
telligence that has impelled every pioneer and ex- 
plorer that ever ventured into the unknown, and 
that flung him unafraid against the last great 
adventure. 


5. Escape Instinct 


In the early history of humanity, fear and flight 
were just as important in protecting the indi- 


34 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


vidual and the group as anger and fight, partic- 
ularly when the latter could not avail and it was 
necessary to get away from danger. But in 
modern life there is only a small place for caution, © 
which is a child of this instinct, and almost none at 
all for fear and timidity and terror, which are no 
longer a protection but rather a handicap to men. 

The problem with us to-day is to get rid of our 
fears, many of which we acquired in childhood 
from ignorant or vicious elders. There is just 
one way to do this, and that is to bring them into 
the light of intelligence, and then dismiss them. 
The heaven of fears is ignorance. I shall name a 
few of these fears, with brief specific suggestions 
regarding their cure. 

(1) Fear of other people. Most of us, I sup- 
pose, are afraid of other people who are wiser or 
wealthier or more prominent than we are. But 
why should we be afraid of them? They are 
merely human beings, made of the same stuff of 
which we are made, and at one time may have been 
of less importance than any one of us. Let us 
cultivate a genuine interest in these other people, 
exhibit kindly feelings toward them, and show a 
desire to learn from them; and thus our minds 
will be distracted from ourselves and our affairs. 
“‘It is a physical impossibility to entertain at one 
and the same time fear for ourselves and consid- 
eration for another,’’ says D. Macdougall King. 

(2) Fear of criticusm. Who are we that we 
should not be criticized adversely, or even ridi- 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 30 


culed? The only thing we need to be fearful 
about is that the bad things others say about us 
may be true. Was there ever anybody that was 
any account who was not laughed at or criticized 
by somebody? It is well to remember, too, as has 
often been pointed out, that frequently ‘‘a knock 
is a boost.’’ 

(3) Fear of taliness. There are many people, 
especially those who are in middle or later life, 
who live in dread of some kind of physical or men- 
tal breakdown, on account of the daily grind of 
life. But work does not hurt anybody. About 
the only danger of disease in maturer years, so the 
physicians tell us, is from infections; and a 
prominent physician says the way to guard 
against infection is to obey the four command- 
ments of health, as follows: (a) Take care of 
your teeth; (b) watch your tonsils; (c) watch 
your sinuses; (d) watch your intestinal tract, 
especially the colon. Dr. William S. Walsh, in his 
book, ‘‘The Mastery of Fear,’’ says: ‘‘It is per- 
fectly possible to have a blood pressure, tempera- 
ture, pulse and weight above or below ‘normal’ 
and to sleep but five or six hours a day, and yet 
be vigorous and in no way endangered.’’ In any 
case, a morbid dreading of disease can only serve 
to make us more susceptible to it. The only 
justifiable fear of illness is that which results in 
improvement in health habits. 

(4) Fear of death. If we live as we ought, we 
need not worry about dying, and, anyway, to 


36 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


worry about death will not keep it away, but only 
hasten its coming. As to the pains of dying, we 
have no reason to fear, for Dr. Walsh tells us, on 
the authority of scientific observation at the bed- 
side of thousands of persons, that physicians are 
able to make this statement: ‘‘The majority of 
the dying die tranquilly and while unconscious, 
and the period of unconsciousness may last min- 
utes, hours or days. While one is unconscious, 
pain, physical or mental, is absent. Therefore, 
the majority of the dying are absolutely devoid of 
distress. The modern methods of preparing the 
dead for burial should discount the fear of being 
buried alive.’’ 

(5) Fear wm superstitions. Superstition is a 
variety of fear, usually acquired during childhood 
from ignorant adults. There is no basis in fact 
for any of the popular superstitions. I broke a 
mirror many years ago, and have had good luck 
ever since. I have started on many journeys on 
a Friday, have slept in No. 13, have seen the new 
moon over my left shoulder; and always have 
come back home without a seratch of any kind. 
If anything ever should happen to me, I am con- 
vinced that it will not be on account of anybody’s 
signs or omens or spells. And I am not ‘‘knock- 
ing on wood”’ as I write this line. 

(6) Other fears. The basic cure for the above- 
named fears, and for all other fears to which man 
is subject, is twofold, namely, to get the facts and 
then to get into the subconscious self through the 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE Oo” 


conscious self the suggestion that there is nothing 
to be afraid of. This is one place, at least, where 
autosuggestion will work, and without using any 
particular set phrase. Simply let the fearful indi- 
vidual give to himself the facts and tell himself 
that he has nothing to be afraid of, and that 
therefore he is not going to be afraid. 


6. Repulsion Instinct 


It is said that our remote ancestors were saved 
from poisoning themselves with berries and roots 
through the bad smells and tastes that caused 
them instinctively to avoid or reject the noxious. 

This instinct would. seem to be of very little 
value to-day, unless it be that some avoid con- 
tagions and infections through a repulsion that 
keeps them at a distance from some other people. 

On the other hand, unless properly supple- 
mented with intelligence, this instinct is likely to 
lead to an excessive daintiness and to an ex- 
ageerated fastidiousness, in connection with foods 
and dress, and particularly with reference to the 
appearance and behavior of other people. 


III. PROGRESSIVE INSTINCTS 


There are four instincts, namely, curiosity, 
acquisitive, constructive and esthetic instincts, 
which may be called progressive, since they make 
for individual and group progress. 


38 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 
7. Curiosity Instinct 


Any new thing or person or object or situation 
that is not too new is a key that unlocks the curi- 
osity instinct. This instinct disposes the indi- 
vidual to attention with suspended judgment and 
to investigation for clearer perception. 

This instinct still is a valuable one, for curiosity 
is at the basis of very much of our learning, and 
is a valuable asset in the development of the- 
sciences. 

Systematic training in perception will be of 
great assistance in strengthening this instinct. 
Two individuals can make a game of observation, 
walking through a store, or past a shop window, 
and then determining which can name the larger 
number of things which he has seen. 

The most hopeless fool in the world is the 
sophisticated fool, who, in his all-sufficient wis- 
dom, never sees anything that is interesting, and 
never discovers anything that evokes enthusiasm. 


8. Acquisitive Instinct 


This is the instinct that is responsible for thrift 
in those individuals who mix with it a proper pro- 
portion of intelligence. And, in this country, 
where hundreds of thousands of people make it a 
practice to spend everything they get hold of as 
soon as they get it, and where enough food is 
wasted every year to feed another hundred million 
people, it would be a fine thing if this instinct 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 39 


could be considerably strengthened among the 
great masses of the people generally. ‘‘Hcono- 
mize and save’’ is a slogan that needs to be made 
widely effective in the interests of the increasing 
welfare of humanity. 

On the other hand, this acquisitive instinct has 
been so strengthened in many people that it has 
developed in them a mean miserliness and un- 
profitable hoarding for the mere sake of having. 
There are people who even hide their wealth from 
themselves, and who, with all their possessions, do 
not live in decency and comfort. 


g. Constructive Instinct 


To this instinct the world is indebted for its 
builders; and it needs to be so strengthened and 
supplemented by intelligence in the great masses 
of people that every one will build something that 
will be of value to humanity, a box or a boat, a 
puzzle or a palace, a skillet or a school, a car or a 
character, an organ or an organization. 

There would seem to be no good reason why 
every normal human creature should not be a 
worth-while creator of something that is humanly 
helpful. 


10. Esthetic Instinct 


There seems to be good reason to believe that 
there is something inborn in us that responds with 
pleasure to rhythm and harmony. 


40 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


The disposition toward rhythm may make of 
one a supporter of good music, or, it may be, a 
musician, or it may make him a mere dancing 
jumping-jack to jazz accompaniment, according to 
the amount of intelligence that is mixed with the 
instinct. 

The disposition toward harmony, namely, the 
appreciation of anything as being in harmony 
with itself, the thing for which it exists, and with 
its surroundings, makes for order and symmetry 
and appreciation and beauty, when rightly supple- 
mented with intelligence; but, when intelligence is 
lacking, it develops artistic bores and fussy, over- 
particular housekeepers, and those hypersensitive 
souls who live in a perpetual hell of discordant 
jangles. 


IV. COOPERATIVE INSTINCTS 


The largest group of the instincts may be 
classed as cooperative, because they make for co- 
operation among human beings and promote so- 
cial welfare. They are the gregarious, sympathy, 
laughter, submission, appeal, and self-assertion 
instincts. All of them are good when controlled 
by a developed intelligence, but may result in bad 
when not properly directed. 


11. Gregarious Instinct 


A sense of loneliness is due to this instinct; and 
what could be more painful? This hunger for the 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 41 


presence of other human beings makes us willing 
to surrender a degree of freedom for the sake of 
association with others, and this is the instinctive 
basis of society and of all group activities. 

This instinct needs to be intelligently developed 
and directed. It is not good for any one to be 
very much alone, and every one should mingle 
freely and frequently and happily with others. 
He should learn how to make himself agreeable 
and helpful to others. He should practise the art 
of friendship and the method of codperation, and 
must do so if he is to be a leader. 

Any one who restricts himself in his friendships 
and fellowships to a clique, or a coterie, or a 
lodge, or a club, or a fraternity, is unncessarily 
limiting the measure of his personality and the 
scope of his activities. 


12. Sympathy Instinct 


The instinct of ‘‘primitive sympathy’’ facili- 
tates social activities and makes for sociability. 
It leads any one to ‘‘laugh with those that laugh 
and to weep with those that weep.’’ It is the 
socializing, ‘‘humanizing’’ phase of human na- 
ture. 

When not properly supported by intelligence, 
it leads to an excessive sharing of the emotional 
excitements of the crowd, to mob violence, to gang 
depredations, and to weak sentimentality. With 
a proper admixture of intelligence, it produces a 


42 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


rational pity and compassion and kindness that 
feeds the hungry and cares for the unfortunate 
and heals the sick and rights the wrongs of the 
oppressed. Asa rule, this compassion is best ex- 
pressed through hospitals and asylums and vari- 
ous benevolent organizations, but always there is 
opportunity for that individual expression of acts 
of kindness and helpfulness that make all life 
more worth while. 

Among the worst characters among us, are some 
individuals who have a liberal share of the mate- 
rial things of existence, and a fair measure of 
schooling, but who are unsympathetic and cynical 
and hard and selfish. 

A saving measure of sympathy in a leader en- 
ables him to understand and appreciate the point 
of view of others, and to gain their cordial co- 
operation. Sympathy is a most effective type of 
persuasion. 


13. Laughter Instinct 


We laugh at failure and suffering when not too 
pronounced, particularly if they are a little out of 
the ordinary, and this saves us from being over- 
sympathetic and overburdened, says McDougall. 
The laughter instinct is nature’s method of keep- 
ing us from taking ourselves and others too 
seriously. 

Laugh and ery live next door to each other, in 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 43 


any normal human being, and always on friendly 
terms, visiting back and forth frequently. 

Laughter is not an indication of imbecility, but 
of intelligence. One of the funniest things in New 
York is a university professor who says that wise 
men do not laugh, and that the men of the future 
will know too much to laugh at anything; and he 
advocates museums to save jokes. The fact is 
that many crazy men do not laugh. Nor do 
morons and some college professors. 

The laughter of a leader who knows how and 
when to laugh is suggestive of good will toward 
others, and is an element of strength in leader- 
ship. 


14. Submission Instinct 


Submission to superior intelligence or char- 
acter or power facilitates group efficiency, makes 
leadership possible, and benefits all concerned. 
When unduly developed, this instinct leads to ex- 
cessive humility, unmanly meekness, and painful 
shyness. 

Properly developed, it leads one to stand in awe 
in the presence of the grandeurs of creation, and 
to be becomingly reverent before the great of 
earth and of heaven. 

This instinct should be so developed in every 
leader as to enable him to submit cheerfully on 
occasion to the leadership of others. Before 


44 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


leaders can become leaders at all, they must learn 
to follow the leadership of others. In order to 
learn to lead, they need to be led. 


15. Appeal Instinct 


Individuals in whom the appeal instinct has 
been overdeveloped are tearful and complaining 
and dependent. They are the beggars on the 
streets. They are the wives of the clinging-vine 
variety in the home. They were mismanaged 
children that cried and whined their way through 
a troubled childhood. 

Those in whom this instinct has been intel- 
ligently directed will confide in sympathetic 
friends, will make known their needs on occasion, 
and will not be too proud to allow the competent 
to assist them. | 

The strongest among us will need assistance at 
times, and we should be glad to receive just as we 
should rejoice to serve. 

This instinct, if overindulged, leads to self-pity, 
which is ruinous to successful leadership. A 
leader must have enough subjectivism to profit 
by criticism, but not to get the ‘‘blues’’ over 
adverse comment. 


16. Self-assertion Instinct 


The instinct of self-assertion is of high impor- 
tance in making possible self-respect and reason- 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 45 


able pride and worthy ambition and dominant 
leadership. In many individuals this instinct was 
unduly suppressed in childhood, and in some cases 
well nigh crushed. 

When wrongly developed this instinct leads to 
conceit and selfishness and ruthlessness. It may 
make of one a bully or a bore, a bandit or a ‘‘bone- 
head.”’ 

It is essential to any high degree of worthy 
leadership to recognize and consider the strength 
of the self-assertion instinct in others. Every 
aspiring leader should heed the following sug- 
gestions: 

(1) Share responsibility. A sharing of respon- 
sibility with others develops in them a sense of 
self-importance and a personal interest im a 
mutual undertaking. A leader must learn when 
and how to share responsibility with others. He 
must learn to delegate responsibility. 

(2) Confer frequently. A leader is not a boss. 
He does not issue orders. He does not impose 
ready-made plans upon his associates. He de- 
velops his plans with the assistance of his co- 
workers. He gathers them around a table in 
conference, and draws them out in thought and 
speech; and the plans thus evolved are mutual 
plans. All have had a share in their making, and 
all feel responsible for them. The leader is no 
longer in the position of one saying, ‘‘Help me 
take care of my brain children,’’ but instead is 
saying, ‘‘Let us take care of our brain children.”’ 


46 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


(3) Practise courtesy. Give your co-workers a 
chance to talk. Listen to them attentively, with 
indications of interest and appreciation. Treat 
them with respect and consideration. Regard 
them as intelligent human beings, and deal with 
them as you would like to have another deal with 
you under the same circumstances. Avoid the 
manner and the tones of a boss. 

(4) Show appreciation. A true leader gives 
the largest possible measure of credit to his 
associates. What he wants is not credit, but re- 
sults; and the results always are most satisfactory 
when the leader exhibits cordial appreciation of 
the suggestions and the efforts of those who are 
working with him. <A few sincere, discriminating 
words of approval, combined with moderate re- 
quests and modest suggestions, are more effec- 
tive in securing adequate codperation than many 
words of fault-finding and abuse and command. 

(5) Compromise occasionally. A leader should 
not expect to have his way all the time; and 
he will have his,way oftener if he will allow others 
to have their way a part of the time. It seems 
to be characteristic of social progress that many 
important advances must be achieved through 
compromise. When.a leader deems it advisable 
to compromise, he should yield gracefully and 
_smilingly. He will then be regarded as a ‘‘good 
sport,’’ and his position as a leader will be 
strengthened. 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 47 


(6) Work indirectly. Get another individual 
to present your suggestion in conference, some- 
times, and let him think that it is his own sugges- 
tion. Work with individuals through other indi- 
viduals. Sell your ideas to your crowd through 
the books and magazine articles and speeches of 
others. Appear but seldom as an advocate or a 
pleader. And then present your views with 
clearness, force, and skill. Use judgment and 
tact. Have confidence in yourself, in your ideals, 
in your associates, and in your organization. 
Work and wait. Some years ago, in a board 
meeting, a man of influence opposed vigorously a 
suggestion that had been made by the leader. 
The leader said: ‘‘All right, let us drop the mat- 
ter. Perhaps we may want to consider it at a 
later meeting.’? Then he brought influences to 
bear upon that man without his knowing it, and 
waited. Six months later, in another meeting of 
the same board, that same man arose and made 
the very suggestion he had opposed six months 
before, believing it to be his own original plan; 
and the leader tactfully assisted him in making 
the plan effective. 

(7) Demonstrate ability. The chief factor in 
all leadership is the leader himself. Leadership 
is not a bag of tricks. It is not effected through 
any hocus-pocus. It is a matter of person- 
ality and skill and intelligence in the leader him- 
self. 


48 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


DISCUSSION 


1. It has been said that ‘‘instinct is a dangerous 
word,’’ and that ‘‘too many psychologists have 
hypnotized themselves with its aid and slipped 
away dreamily into metaphysics.’? For discus- 
sions of instincts, see McDougall, Cabot, Du Bois, 
Thorndike, Colvin and Bagley; Saxby, Hollings- 
worth and Poffenberger, Dresser, Dunlap, Hd- 
man, Ellwood, Marshall, Moore, Pillsbury, Platt, 
Robinson, Wallas, Warren, Woodworth, Paton, 
Drever. 

2. For a discussion of fears, see ‘‘The Mastery 
of Fear,’’ by Walsh; ‘‘Why Worry?”’ by Walton; 
‘‘The Conquest of Fear,’’ by Basil King. 

3. A book that was written for the sake of chil- 
dren is almost as helpful for adults, namely, 
‘*Safeguarding Children’s Nerves,’’ by Walsh and 
Foote. 

4, Discuss the following statement from one of 
the recent books: ‘‘The number of suicides is 
constantly increasing in our generation, and the 
age at which self-destruction is accomplished is 
on the average younger than it used to be.’? Why 
So many suicides? What can be done about it? 

do. For a suggestive discussion of laughter, and 
a statement of the many various views of different 
authors, see ‘‘The Psychology of Laughter and 
Comedy,’’ by Creig. 

6. Albert Edward Wiggam, in his ‘‘New Dec- 
alogue of Science,’’ suggests the following new 


INSTINCTS AND INTELLIGENCE 49 


Golden Rule: ‘‘Do unto both the born and the 
unborn as you would have both the born and the 
unborn do unto you.’’ 

7. Not many months ago, more than a thousand 
New York business men met at a testimonial 
dinner to do honor to a man who had started in 
business with nothing twenty-three years before 
and had made more than six million dollars 
simply by gaining the confidence of all with whom 
he had dealt by being thoroughly and completely 
honest, and never undertaking to hide anything 
from anybody about himself or his business. 
This man says: ‘‘The best way to get what you 
want in life is to play with the other fellow, not 
against him, and never to try to fool anybody. If 
something should happen to-morrow to sweep 
away every dollar I have in the world, I don’t be- 
heve I would be frightened, for, with the ex- 
perience of the past twenty-three years to guide 
me, I could rebuild my fortune in half the time it 
has taken me to make it.’’ 

8. Prof. Charles A. Ellwood, in his ‘‘Introduc- 
tion to Social Psychology,’’ says, ‘‘The great 
increase of sympathy and altruism in these higher 
forms in modern society is probably the surest 
guarantee of continued progress and the ultimate 
social adjustment of all classes, nations and races 
in the modern world.’’ 


CHAPTER III 
PERSONALITY FACTORS 


No one can be a leader unless he can ‘‘sell’’ 
himself to others, and he can do this only through 
a developed personality. Such a personality may 
be said to embody nine basic qualities, or factors, 
all of which may be cultivated and strengthened. 
These are vitality, attractivity, emotionality, 
cordiality, mentality, spirituality, sincerity, au- 
dacity, and individuality. 


I. VITALITY 


Vitality is a combination of physical energy 
and mental alertness. It includes physical ear- 
nestness, as well as moral earnestness, and makes 
the impression of interested aliveness. It ex- 
presses itself in a vibrance of the voice, in a 
brightness in the eyes, and in quickness and de- 
cision in movement. 

It involves a controlled giving out of an abun- 
dance of nervous energy, but it is not nervousness. 
It expresses itself in animation, but it is more than 
66 pep.”’ 

It is dependent in part on native endowment, 


but in a large measure on physical and mental fit- 
50 


PERSONALITY FACTORS D1 


ness, and it involves a conscious and habitual 
effort to throw the total self wholly into the 
activity of the moment. 

All great leaders in industry have vitality; all 
popular actors and actresses have it; all effective 
public speakers have it. 

I suppose that America has more good speakers 
—in the pulpit, on the political stump, and on the 
lecture platform—than any other country in the 
world. But we might just as well have a thousand 
good public speakers where we now have one, if 
the other 999 had not been toned down into ex- 
cessive quietness and slowness by that creeping 
paralysis, all too prevalent in many schools, which 
may be designated as ‘‘formalism.”’ 

We must have knowledge, we must use correct 
English, we must arrange our thoughts in logical 
order; but, in all our getting, we must get vitality, 
if we are to be effective as speakers. 

And, when I speak of speakers, I am not speak- 
ing simply of those who address large audiences, 
but also of those who speak to small audiences in 
clubs and conferences and committees and homes. 
In almost all the callings, an individual’s chances 
for advancement and for the attainment of con- 
spicuous leadership are increased many-fold if he 
is able to speak effectively—and this means that 
his speaking must be characterized by vitality. 

This is true even when one individual is speak- 
ing to another individual. What chance has a 
salesman who is excessively quiet and exasperat- 


52 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


ingly slow? He is saying more with his quietness | 
and slowness than he is with his words, and what 
he is thus saying, by indirect suggestion, is, ‘‘ What 
I have to say amounts to very little, and what I 
have to sell is worth still less.’’ 

A salesman, in order to sell any kind of goods, 
must first ‘‘sell’’ himself, and this means that he 
must throw himself into his selling, heart and soul 
—he must have vitality. He must not have noise, 
‘‘pep,’’ bluster, insolence, discourtesy, and ego- 
tism, but he must have a controlled, directed 
vitality. 


Il. ATTRACTIVITY 


Attractivity in personal appearance is depend- 
ent on neatness, style, and taste. It is true that 
clothes do not make the man, but it also is true 
that clothes do advertise the man—either favor- 
ably or unfavorably. 

The personal appearance of a man proclaims 
him to be an individual with self-respect or the 
lack of it, an individual with due consideration for 
others or the contrary. 

Others are prejudiced in our favor or against 
us by our personal appearance when they first 
meet us. They immediately look at us and judge 
us; and they will be slow to change from this first 
impression of us, since first impressions are 
strongest. 

It is the part of common sense and ‘‘good 


PERSONALITY FACTORS d3 


business,’’ therefore, for every man to appear 
personally as attractive as possible—to average 
at least three hundred and sixty-five baths and 
shaves a year, to wear clothes that are clean and 
that fit, to wear out a manicure set every year or 
two, to keep his shoes shined, to dress within the 
limits of the mode of the time and place in which 
he lives, to exercise good taste in the selection of 
materials and colors and styles and combinations, 
and to dress quietly, within his means and suitably 
to his occupation. All this is possible even to a 
man of meager income. 

When a man is engaged in manual labor, he 
must, of course, dress accordingly; but at other 
times he must be a ‘‘good dresser’’ in the best 
sense if he would maintain his self-respect and 
demand the respect of others. 

If any man has brains, he will do well to use a 
fair proportion of them on himself. If he would 
have the confidence of respectable, sensible 
people, he must avoid all pronounced colors, all 
loud suitings, and all extremes in style. 

It is important also that he should seek to ex- 
press his own individuality and to attain a per- 
sonal distinctiveness in his appearance, within the 
range of accepted standards. 

All this will apply in principle to women as well 
as to men. Women are supposed to know how to 
dress, but, in many cases, this is a violent assump- 
tion. Many women dress well, and present a 
most attractive appearance. They dress neatly, 


a4 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


quietly, simply, modestly, becomingly, fashion- 
ably, individually, and economically. 

Some of them, however, have not even learned 
that pronounced stripes up and down cause a tall 
woman to look six inches taller than she is, and 
twenty-five pounds lighter, while pronounced 
stripes around cause a plump woman to look six 
inches shorter and fifty pounds heavier. 


III. EMOTIONALITY 


In the highest type of leadership, there is a 
happy mixture of the intellectual and the emo- 
tional. Nobody can warm up to an ‘‘iceberg.’’ 

A great leader is likely to have great likes and 
dislikes, and to give occasional expression to these 
strong feelings. And people like this element of 
‘‘humanness.’’ , 

The man whom people like is the man who likes 
people. If any individual believes in people, and 
likes them, somehow they will find it out, though 
he may not say very much about it. It is a well- 
recognized principle in psychology that the ex- 
pression of an emotion tends to develop a similar 
emotion in others; and it is a fact of common ex- 
perience that love begets love, that hatred begets 
hatred, that smiles beget smiles, that happiness 
begets happiness, that admiration begets admira- 
tion, that ridicule begets ridicule. People tend to 
feel as we feel, to like what we like—to like us if 
we like them. 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 59 


If we take fun and faith into our tasks, our 
tasks are thus magnified in the thinking of others, 
and there will be developed in them appreciation 
of us and our work. A happy, optimistic spirit is 
‘‘catching.’’ A pessimist may attain fame as a 
writer or a philosopher, but will never be a leader 
of men in any true sense. On the other hand, any 
one need not be very learned, or very famous, in 
order to be a real leader in the best sense, bright- 
ening life for others and making a substantial 
contribution to human welfare. 


IV. CORDIALITY 


There appeared in one of our magazines, a few 
years ago, an article entitled ‘‘A Million Dollar 
Smile.’? It was about a man who had attained 
success in business and had become the head of 
his concern because he knew how to smile and to 
appear interested when he had dealings with 
others. He shook hands as if it were a pleasure 
to him. There was an inflection of cordiality in 
his speech when he talked to others. There was 
a direct looking into the eyes of the other and an 
interested, pleased, expectant manner. 

If such friendliness is worth a million dollars 
in business, it is worth a billion and more in the 
coin of the spiritual realm on earth. 

When I was a college student, I was told by one 
of the judges, after engaging in a debating con- 
test, that the judges of the contest would have 


56 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


given me first honors instead of second honors if 
I had not ‘‘looked so sour.’’ 

I said to him, ‘‘I did not know I looked that 
way.’’ 

‘“Well, you did,’’ he said. ‘‘You looked as if 
you could bite a nail in two, and as if you would 
like to tear your opponent into pieces.’’ 

‘*T did not feel that way,’’ I said. ‘‘I was just 
in earnest.’’ 

‘‘But that is not the way to show your earnest- 
ness,’’ he said. ‘‘You should learn to smile, and 
should cultivate a friendly manner.”’ 

After I had recovered from the hurt of this 
plain talk, I began to appreciate the advice, and I 
tried to profit by it. I said to myself, ‘‘I am go- 
ing to learn to smile even if I have to paint a smile 
upon my face until it gets to be natural.’’ 


V. MENTALITY 


By mentality I mean mental alertness, human 
awakeness, persistent aliveness, appropriate re- 
sponsiveness. 

A human being is an intelligent organism; and, 
during his waking moments, he ought to be react- 
ing vigorously and purposefully to his whole 
continuous environment. 

Mentality expresses itself in attention to what 
others are saying and doing, and in interested 
and interesting response to their words and deeds. 
It expresses itself in a courageous facing of facts, 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 57 


in an intelligent meeting of life situations, in the 
adequate solution of social problems, and in ef- 
fective cooperation with others in worth-while 
undertakings. 

Most people seem to be only about one-fourth 
awake, even in their liveliest moments, and vast 
numbers of them are chronic sleep-walkers in the 
open day. 

Those who have the most mentality are not al- 
ways the ones who have been in school the longest. 
A college diploma is not a proof of mentality. 
Mentality does not consist in an accumulation of 
facts, nor in the ability to discuss philosophy. 

Those who possess mentality always are better 
educated than others, in the best meaning of the 
term ‘‘education,’’ for they have learned how to 
think effectively. Where and how they learned 
to do this are incidental. 

He who would be a leader must be a lifelong 
reader and student, refusing to regard a school 
commencement as a guitment, but rather as a 
beginment. He must read, on the average, and 
at the very lowest allowance, one worth-while book 
a month—twelve a year, sixty in five years, three 
hundred in twenty-five years. One or two good 
books a week would be better. 

The young, inexperienced reader may find help- 
ful the following suggestions: 

(1) Read advisedly. Seek the personal advice 
of two or three leaders in whom you have con- 
fidence, and run through book reviews and an- 


08 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


nouncements, in order that you may make a wise 
selection from the more than eight thousand books 
that are published every year. 

(2) Read rapidly. The more rapidly you read, 
the more benefit you will gain from your reading, 
provided you read with understanding and ap- 
preciation. The slower reader is not necessarily 
the better assimilator. Quite the contrary, hun- 
dreds of experiments have shown the rapid reader 
to be the more masterful reader. Slowness in 
reading frequently indicates laziness and be- 
fuddlement rather than profundity. A good 
standard reading rate is a page a minute for the 
average three-hundred-page book. 

(3) Read open-mindedly. He who is willing 
to read only that which he already knows and be- 
lieves will never learn anything from anybody. 
A friend of mine says that the most helpful book 
he ever read made him so angry at the time that 
he threw it out of the window. But he could not 
get away from it, and he recovered it and read it 
again. We must read not only for confirmation 
but for reformation. 

(4) Read progressively. A growing reader 
will be continuously outgrowing books, just as a 
growing boy outgrows clothes. I should not 
think of wasting time now on some kinds of books 
that once helped me. 

(5) Read thoughtfully. A reader should not 
read sponge-fashion, but organism-fashion—just 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 59 


as the sponge did when it was alive—reacting at 
every moment. While he is reading, he should be 
weighing, considering, judging, willing, applying. 

(6) Read selectively. ‘Why should any reader 
feel under any obligation to finish a book which he 
begins, or to read every sentence or paragraph as 
he comes to it? It is quite sufficient in some cases 
to read only selected paragraphs, in order to get 
the value of the whole, or even to read only the 
chapter headings and subheadings, when the book 
deals with material with which the reader already 
is familiar. 

(7) Read codperatively. It is wellif the reader 
can belong to a reading circle or a training class, 
that he may have the stimulus of example and co- 
operation. 

(8) Read unselfishly. If the reader reads for 
pleasure, he should read for something more. If 
he reads for personal profit, he should read for 
something besides. He should read in order to 
extend the benefits of his leadership among men. 

(9) Read gratefully. If, about the three- 
hundredth page of a four-hundred-page book, you 
get an idea or an inspiration, you have acquired 
something for which mere money could not pay. 
The very least the reader can do is to read humbly 
and gratefully, and to seek to express his grati- 
tude in improved leadership. 

(10) Read appropriatively. If any one reads 
a. worth-while book, and remains as he was, then 


60 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


he has not really read it at all. Form this reso- 
lution: ‘‘Every time I read a book, I am going 
to try to find in it at least one thing that I can take 
into my innermost self, to make me different and 
wiser and better and more useful.’’ 


VI. SPIRITUALITY 


By spirituality I do not mean anything medi- 
eval or ‘‘goody-goody.’’ I remember a man 
whom everybody called spiritually minded. He 
would get up in the prayer-meeting, in the little 
church in the country, every Wednesday evening, 
and talk and cry. It was always the same talk 
and the samecry. He was not spiritually minded. 
He did not have mind enough to be spiritual with. 

To be spiritually minded means to have a mind 
and to use it to such good effect that the material 
things of existence take their proper place in the 
background of life. He who is possessed of spir- 
ituality exalts mind over matter, and lives in the 
realm of spirit where material things are only in- 
cidental. He lives a life that is fundamentally, 
essentially, genuinely, and unaffectedly religious. 

There are those who foolishly think that every- 
body would be happy if they had comfortable 
homes and plenty to eat and wear. I wish there 
were a more equitable distribution of the wealth 
of the world, and that everybody had these mate- 
rial comforts, and also a fair amount of leisure; 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 61 


but this would not mean happiness for everybody 
—far from it. Those who are dependent on the 
material things of existence for happiness will 
never be happy. 

True happiness is possible only to those who 
have spirituality, that is, those who have devel- 
oped in themselves strong spiritual attitudes and 
ideals. 

An attitude is any individual’s fixed way of 
thinking about anything, with an emotional set of 
approval or disapproval. Everyone should seek 
to develop in himself right attitudes toward him- 
self and his work, toward others, toward God, 
toward money, toward industry and honesty and 
chastity and truth-telling and courage. 

An ideal is a mental picture of any desirable 
attainment or achievement. If a man has ‘‘high 
ideals,’’ or ‘‘standards,’’ we can trust him and 
follow him. Ideals and attitudes largely control 
conduct; and we can predict, with some degree of 
accuracy, what an individual’s conduct will be 
under given circumstances, if we know what are 
his ideals, or standards, and attitudes—his ‘‘senti- 
ments,’’? as McDougall calls them. 

In checking up on himself, a person will do well 
to take stock of his ideals of honesty, truthfulness, 
unselfishness, love, faith, courage, tolerance, kind- 
ness, self-confidence, humility, appreciation, co- 
operation, generosity, optimism, sportsmanship, 
service, and other such virtues. 


62 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


VII. SINCERITY 


Sincerity involves a courageous loyalty to truth, 
in thought, in word, and in deed. 

Here again a few suggestions may be in order. 

(1) Court criticism. This applies not only to 
friendly criticism, which always should be re- 
ceived with a smiling ‘‘Thank you,’’ but also to 
unfriendly criticism, which, though it may be un- 
kind and unfair, should be carefully pondered ; for 
sometimes a man’s enemies turn out to be friends 
in disguise. Nothing ever is gained by refusing 
to face the facts of life. 

(2) Admit ignorance. The world’s great men 
and women never are ashamed to say, on occasion, 
‘“T don’t know,’’ for they know that nobody knows 
very much about anything. 

(3) Learn from failures. It is characteristic 
of great leaders that they have learned how to 
turn their failures into stepping-stones to success. 
It is no disgrace to make mistakes and failures, 
but it is a disgrace not to learn anything from 
them. The only individuals who never make 
mistakes are those who never make anything 
worth making. 

(4) Do tt your way. Others cannot tell us ex- 
actly how to do our work. They can give to us 
the benefit of their experiences in meeting certain 
life situations, but we must face our own problems 
as they are, in the light of the experiences of oth- 
ers combined with our own experiences, and work 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 63 


out new, individual solutions. Each of us is a 
part of a social group, with its group limitations 
and proscriptions; but at the same time there is a 
large measure of individual freedom, and each of 
us may dare to be himself and to act in his own 
way, in the confidence that in so doing his position 
in the group will be, as a rule, all the more impor- 
tant. 

(5) Speak the truth. A reputation for truth- 
telling is more than compensation for any occa- 
sional losses which may come to us as the result 
of a strict adherence to the truth. Aside from the 
moral aspects of the question, honesty zs the best 
policy. If we would lead, others must have con- 
fidence in us, and they will not have confidence in 
hars. Of course, there must be exercised some 
judgment in the telling of the truth. One need 
not be brutal in order to be truthful, and he need 
not tell all the truth all the time. Truth-telling, 
as well as lying, has its own technique, and it can 
be done temperately, proportionately, sanely, 
gracefully, decently, and helpfully. 


VIII. AUDACITY 


When I was a young fellow, representing a 
young people’s organization, I went to the offices 
of the president of a railroad company, and in- 
sisted on seeing that official personally, assuring 
the subordinate that I had a private matter of im- 
portance to present. When, finally, I had gained 


c+ PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


admission to the august presence, I said: ‘‘Mr. 
Smith, I am Henry Edward Tralle, representing 
the young people of the churches of this State. 
We are going to hold a convention at Blanktown, 
on your line. I am going to visit various sections 
of the State in the interests of this convention, in 
order to get out a crowd, and, as I am going to do 
this without any pay for my services, I think it 
only fair that you should give me a thousand miles 
of free transportation over your lines.’’ 

The president smiled, asked a few questions, 
rang for a stenographer, and said to her, ‘‘Make 
out a thousand-mile book to Henry E. Tralle, and 
charge to expenses.’’ I left the office with that 
book in my pocket, and we had a crowd at the con- 
vention. 

It is one of the privileges of youth to convert 
the dare-devil in him into a dare-angel on occa- 
sion, and, without any discourtesy or injury to 
anybody, to venture to do the exceptional thing 
and to take a chance in the interests of a good 
cause. The very audacity and assurance of it all 
will appeal sometimes to a man in a position of 
influence. A degree of adequately controlled au- 
dacity is an element of strength in any person- 
ality. 

It is the privilege and the duty of every indi- 
vidual to believe in himself reasonably and to as- 
sert his personality in all appropriate and useful 
ways. He should be modestly ambitious and 
helpfully enterprising. He should take it for 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 65 


granted that he is in the world for some worthy 
purpose, and should regard it as his prerogative 
to make that purpose evident to himself and to 
others. It is just as bad to think too lowly as it 
is to think too highly of one’s self. 


IX. INDIVIDUALITY 


Every one of the leaders of the world stands out 
among his fellows as a high peak in.a range of 
mountains that is not only higher than the other 
mountains but different from them. 

It is his individuality, his distinctiveness, that 
attracts attention and arouses interest on the part 
of others. Without this attention and interest, 
worthy leadership is impossible. 

Human beings are interesting to one another 
because of their differences, and not because of 
their likenesses; and those who are possessed of 
the most differences are the leaders, as a rule, 
provided their differences are advantageous dif- 
ferences and not eccentricities or defects. An 
idiot is different from most people, but he has not 
therefore a stronger personality, and he is not a 
leader. 

Kiven when we recognize the importance of in- 
dividuality in the development of personality, it 
’ is not easy for any one of us to be ‘‘himself’’; for 
always there are those at hand who, with the best 
intentions in the world, would rob us of that which 
is our most valuable asset. 


66 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


When I was learning to be a speaker, well- 
meaning friends would say, ‘‘Don’t swing your 
long arms around when you talk,’’ and I quit that. 
They would say, ‘‘Don’t put your hands behind 
your back when you talk,’’ and I quit that. They 
would say, ‘‘Don’t dig around in your vest pocket 
with your forefinger and thumb when you talk,’’ 
and I quit that. They would say, ‘‘Don’t make 
such ugly faces when you talk,’’ and I quit that. 
They would say, ‘‘Don’t run your hands through 
your hair when you talk,’’ and I quit that. 

After a while I had quit everything anybody 
could object to. I was ‘‘perfect.’’ I stood 
quietly in the middle of the platform. My tones 
were well modulated, and my gestures were grace- 
ful. There was only one drawback about it all: 
the people either went to sleep or went out while 
I was talking. 

Then I said: ‘‘I am going to dare to be myself 
—not my ‘natural’ self in the sense of being as 
I have become through unintelligent imitation of 
others, but my own true best self as I am able 
gradually to discover that self and to improve it, 
a little every day, through reading and study and 
reflection and experimentation, and through a 
thoughtful consideration of the criticisms ob- 
tained from others. Both of my heredities have 
made me different from other human beings, and 
they tend to make me increasingly different, as 
I consciously try to develop myself from within, 
always seeking to conform reasonably to custom 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 67 


and conventionality. I cannot hope to become a 
leader if I am a mere imitator, for then I myself 
am not present, and the individual I am imitating 
is not present, so there is nobody actually present 
—and it is impossible for nobody to lead any- 
body.’’ 

From that day until this moment, I have never 
been without my critics, but also I have never 
been without an ever-growing number of the 
earth’s elect whom I am proud to number among 
my friends and my helpers. 

Sometimes young people will say, in effect, ‘‘I 
am afraid to be different from others, for people 
then would laugh at me,’’ and the answer is: 
‘Who are you, that you should not be laughed at? 
When they are laughing at you, they at least know 
that you are present, whereas, if you were as the 
others, you would be lost in the crowd. All the 
great leaders of history have been subjected to 
the senseless ridicule of the ignorant mob that 
were not worthy to unfasten the sandals of their 
spiritual feet. Moreover, it often comes to pass 
that the jeerers are turned into cheerers.”’ 


DISCUSSION 


1. Some years ago, Prof. F. L. Clapp, of the 
University of Illinois, received one hundred an- 
swers to a questionnaire sent to representative 
school superintendents and principals, and the 
ten words used most in the hundred answers, to 


68 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


indicate the qualities in a ‘‘good, teaching per- 
sonality,’? were appearance, address, reserve, 
fairness, enthusiasm, vitality, sincerity, optimism, 
scholarship, and sympathy. 

2. In an interview with Prof. W. W. Charters, 
in the ‘‘American Magazine’’ for April, 1924, he 
was reported as analyzing personality into the 
following twenty factors: (1) Ambition, (2) in- 
dustriousness, (3) ‘persistence and patience, (4) 
dependability, (5) forcefulness, (6) effectiveness 
of speech, (7) self-confidence, (8) friendliness, 
(9) adaptability, (10) tact, (11) cheerfulness, 
(12) good judgment, (13) sensitiveness to criti- 
cism, (14) ability to size up people, (15) memory, 
(16) neatness, (17) health habits, (18) discrimina- 
tion, (19) economy, and (20) capacity to delegate 
work. 

3. A young woman, who is a worker in religious 
education, when she read the article to which ref- 
erence has just been made, arranged a ‘‘chart”’ 
containing the twenty personality factors and sent. 
copies to eighteen of her friends, asking them to 
‘‘orade’’ her, giving her their frank judgment. 
These friends did as requested, and she found 
their reports to be exceedingly helpful. 

4, Several years ago, a New York school prin- 
cipal furnished a list of questions that might be: 
used by any student in taking a personal inven- 
tory, as follows: Part A—Physical. (1) Are 
you in perfect health? (2) Are you athletic? 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 69 


(3) Is your posture good? (4) Can you swim? 
(5) Do you bathe regularly? (6) Do you brush 
your teeth daily? (7) Do you move your bowels 
regularly? (8) Do you chew your food well? 
(9) Do you exercise daily? (10) Do you sleep in 
a room with open windows? Part B—Mental. 
(1) Are you well educated? (2) Do you speak 
English correctly? (3) Do you’ enunciate 
clearly? (4) Are you studious? (5) Are you 
fond of reading? (6) Is your penmanship good? 
(7) Do you observe things? (8) Have you a good 
memory? (9) Can you concentrate? (10) Do 
you think before you speak? Part C—Moral. 
(1) Is your personal appearance neat? (2) Are 
you punctual? (3) Are you polite? (4) Are 
your table manners good? (5) Are you kind? 
(6) Are you obedient? (7) Are you honest? 
(8) Are you tactful? (9) Do you exercise self- 
control? (10) Are you systematic? (11) Are 
you courageous? (12) Are you ambitious? (13) 
Are you industrious? (14) Are you modest? 
(15) Are you cheerful? (16) Are you thrifty? 
(17) Have you a sense of humor? (18) Have you 
initiative? (19) Are you optimistic? (20) Are 
you patriotic? | 

do. Statistics gathered over a period of years 
in the University of Michigan show that the men 
who make good grades and who also are good 
‘‘mixers’’ are the ones who become most success- 
ful after leaving school, particularly in the abil- 


70 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


ity to earn money. Social leadership on the cam- 
pus means a high grade of leadership out in the 
world. 

6. Mr. H. G. Wells has said: ‘‘The past cen- 
tury has been the supreme century of material 
achievement; the next and the twenty-first century 
will, I believe, be a great fruiting and harvesting 
time of psychological and physiological science. 
‘Man, having run all over the world from pole to 
pole, having learned how to fly around it in seven 
or eight days, and how to look or speak round it 
in a flash, will presently, I think, become intro- 
spective and turn his practical attention to him- 
self.’’ 

7. Herbert W. Hess, in his ‘‘Creative Sales- 
manship,’’ discusses personality in salesmanship 
and ‘‘the creative personality type of salesman.’’ 

8. According to Kathleen Woodward, in the 
‘“New York Times Book Review’’ of August 31, 
1924, one of the most remarkable personalities 
in England was that of Lady Colvin, the wife of 
Sir Sidney Colvin. ‘‘Lady Colvin died on the 
same day as Joseph Conrad, from whom she re- 
ceived a last glowing tribute written by him only 
the day before, and who attributed to her much of 
his success as a writer. For fifty years and more 
this woman had been the hidden font for the liter- 
ary lions of to-day. She was more than eighty 
years old when she died; yet her contact with the 
outside world and life and letters and all the arts 
was as fresh as in the days of a glorious youth. 


PERSONALITY FACTORS 71 


Here beside me in the room were the abundant 
evidences and testimonies of her peculiar zest and 
verve—on books, reviews, novels, poetry, criti- 
cism, drama, music, politics. She seemed to have 
the power not only to divine a latent literary im- 
pulse, but also to fire its possessor with an enthu- 
siasm for exercising this talent. Lady Colvin 
herself wrote nothing. She was past master in 
the art of self-effacement. She inspired the 
achievements of other souls, other minds—Robert 
Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Hugh Walpole, 
Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, and others.’’ 

9. For helpful chapters, see Hollingsworth’s 
‘¢ Judging Human Character,’’ Dearborn’s ‘‘ How 
to Learn Easily,’’? Paton’s ‘‘Human Behavior,”’ 
Pyle’s ‘‘The Psychology of Learning,’’ Robin- 
son’s ‘‘The Humanizing of Knowledge,’’ Severn’s 
‘<The Psychology of Behavior,’’ Whipple’s ‘‘ How 
to Study Effectively,’? Woodworth’s ‘‘Psychol- 
ogy, a Study of Mental Life.’’ 


CHAPTER IV 
SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 


In an, autobiographical article, entitled ‘‘The 
Compelling Lover,’’ in the ‘‘Cosmopolitan Maga- 
zine’’ for August, 1918, Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
said: 

‘‘One night, after coming from a lecture, my 
husband left me at the door of our apartment, 
and said he was going up to the Lotos Club for 
an hour. I prepared for retiring, and then sat 
down to my moments of concentration. Suddenly 
I felt that I must go to my desk. I had no idea 
what I was to do; I had finished my day’s work 
before I went to the lecture, and had no least 
thought of writing anything more that day. Yet 
so strong was the urge that I rose, went to my 
desk, took up my pen, and began to write. I was 
perfectly conscious, yet my mortal brain certainly 
had nothing to do with what my pen wrote down. 
It was as if some one thought for me. I watched 
my hand form the words with interest, as I would 
have watched a friend write. This is the poem 
which came under those peculiar conditions: 


ILLUSION 


‘‘God and I in space alone, 


And nobody else in view. 
72 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 73 


‘And where are the people, O Lord,’ I said, 
‘The earth below, and the sky o’erhead, 
And the dead whom once I knew?’ 


‘¢ «That was a dream,’ God smiled and said, 
‘A dream that seemed to be true. 

There were no people, living or dead; 

There was no earth and no sky o’erhead; 

There was only Myself in you.’ 


‘* *Why do I feel no fear,’ I asked, 
‘Meeting You here this way; 

For I have sinned, I know full well, 

And is there heaven, and is there hell, 

And is this the judgment day?’ 


‘¢ ‘Nay, those were but dreams,’ the Great God 
said, 
‘Dreams that have ceased to be. 
There are no such things as fear or sin; 
There is no you—you never have been— 
There is nothing at all but Me.’ ”’ 


Let me put alongside this experience and its 
interpretation a similar experience of my own, 
with a different interpretation. 

I stood on the upper deck of a ferry-boat, one 
beautiful fall morning, on my way from down- 
town New York to Staten Island. 

As the boat started, I looked ahead at the 


74 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


Statue of Liberty on the right and the Brooklyn 
waterfront on the left, and the entrancing view 
between. 

An ocean liner, under a full head of steam, was 
plowing toward the mouth of the Hudson, ocean 
freighters were coming and going, various types 
of sea-going vessels were anchored here and there, 
sturdy little tugboats were busily towing their 
sizable cargoes of commerce, ferry-boats were 
making their way to and fro, and, above it all, 
airplanes were flying hither and thither. 

As I reflected, I said to myself: ‘‘I paid a 
nickel for this ride, and it is worth a hundred 
dollars. J am traveling on the highway of the 
nations, and all the world is before my eyes. 
There are the flags of the nations, and the peoples 
of the nations, and the wealth of the nations. 
This is the most interesting highway in the world 
—and it does not have to be swept nor sprinkled.’’ 

Then, by the laws of association, there came to 
me the thought that every human being has in 
his heart a highway even more interesting, and 
over which he himself has the control; and, in a 
moment of glow, there came up out of the depths 
of the subconscious part of my self-unity the fol- 
lowing lines: 


Hiaguway or My Heart 


O Highway of my Heart, 
I’m manager of you, 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 79 


And none can come or go 
Until I tell him to. 


And all that come and go, 
Whether by day or night, 

Must be sincere and pure 

And good and sweet and right. 


I leave it to the reader to say whether or not 
my lines have not in them more of truth and in- 
spirational value than those of the author of 
‘<Tilusion.”’ 

At any rate, I think my poem came to me in 
essentially the same way as ‘‘Illusion’’ came to 
its author. And I should not say that ‘‘my mor- 
tal brain certainly had nothing to do with what 
my pen wrote down,’’ for I cannot understand 
how it is possible to conceive of any brain that is 
not mortal. 

I think of the soul, or mind, as being immortal, 
but I cannot think of that mass of gray matter 
which we call the brain, the material thing which 
the mind, the individual personality, the ego, uses 
as the instrument, or machinery, of its thinking, 
as being immortal. The brain, the thought ma- 
chine, must decay with the rest of the body. 

I should rather say that my mortal brain had 
everything to do with my little poem, that it was 
the piece of machinery that turned out the prod- 
uct, under my supervision. 

Whatever Power outside of me there may be 


76 "PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


working in me must work through my ‘‘mortal 
brain,’’ at least while I possess this mortal body ; 
for this mortal brain is the piece of machinery 
that this Power outside of me, which I call God, 
has given me for this purpose. 

Nor should I seek to create the impression that 
there was anything mysterious or magical about 
my inspiration. It was the sort of inspiration, 
essentially, that every individual has at times, or 
at least may have. 

The materials of my poem had first to get into 
the subconscious part of me before they could 
get out. During every waking moment of every 
human being, the ‘‘stream of consciousness”’ is 
pouring into the subconscious self the mental ma- 
terials out of which are constructed all the 
thought structures erected by the personality. 

Or, abandoning this rather crude and outworn 
figure of speech, it would be accurate to say that 
the thinking of any particular moment always is 
influenced to a very great extent by the thinking 
of the moments that have preceded. 

One proof that this is true is the fact that any 
thought structures always are characteristic of 
the builders. They are the kind of creations to 
be expected from their creators. 

The poem of Ella Wheeler Wilcox is a case in 
point. This is the kind of poem that might be 
expected to come from the pen of this writer. 
Her autobiographical writings reveal to us the 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 17 


fact that, for many years she had been a reader 
of various types of psycho-religious literature, 
such as New Thought, Unity, Christian Science, 
and Spiritualism, and that she had associated 
with the adherents of various isms and cults. 

It is to be expected, therefore, that from such 
mpourings there might come out a statement of 
denial ‘of the plainest facts of common human 
experience. She even denies the reality of her 
own existence, while at the same admitting that 
She has a ‘‘mortal mind’’ that is sometimes in 
working order—‘‘those were but dreams’’; 
‘*there is no you’’; ‘‘nothing at all but Me.’’ 

Her poem was plainly a precipitate of an incon- 
sistent mass of current vagaries, and is illustra- 
tive of the truth that there are many people who 
like to roam at will in the dim twilight of the 
mystical, and who prefer befuddling vagaries to 
enlightening explanations. 

Also, continuing the comparison between the 
two poems, my ‘‘Highway of My Heart’’ is quite 
characteristic of myself. It is the type of thing 
that my friends would expect of me. It would 
fit in with one of my speeches; in fact, I used it 
in a speech the same day I wrote it. It was a pre- 
cipitate of years of reading and thinking. 

Make it as light a thing as you will, still I main- 
tain that it is characteristic. It is evidently mine, 
and it seems a reasonable conclusion that it must 
first have got into me before it could get out of me. 


78 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


I. THE POURING-IN PROCESS 


What is the practical conclusion, then, the les- 
son for everybody? It is, patently, this: Put 
anto your subconscious self now the kind of things 
you would like to have come out later. 

Would you like to have poetry come out? Then 
pour in poetry. Read widely in the field of 
poetry, and study the technique of poetic compo- 
sition, so that your poetic thought, later, may fall 
into suitable molds, or forms, of poetic expression. 

Also pour in prose literature, ancient and mod- 
ern, covering a wide range in your reading, and, 
most important of all, pour in your own first- 
hand, accurate, detailed, thoughtful observations 
of nature and life, at the same time seeking de- 
liberately to develop in yourself appreciation and 
understanding and insight and idealism and the 
common human virtues. In short, live a poetic 
life, and some day you will be able to write poetry. 

Do you want oratory to come out of the 
depths of your subconscious self? Then pour in 
oratory. Master the technique of public speech 
as it is taught in schools and in books, and prac- 
tise the principles and the exercises that develop 
effectiveness in enunciation, modulation, force, 
emphasis, pronunciation, gesture, and animation. 
Master the masses of facts and theories that con- 
stitute the background of content for oratory in 
some department of human thought and endeavor 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 79 


—politics or science or literature or history or 
art or medicine or religion. 

Do you want mctures to emerge from your sub- 
conscious self? Then pour in pictures. Endure 
the grind of schooling in drawing and painting. 
Learn the secrets of composition. Sit at the feet 
of the masters. Visit art galleries. Read the 
histories of art and the biographies of artists. 
Practise until you have acquired an artistic tech- 
nique. Train your eye to discern and to appre- 
ciate the beauties in nature if you are to be a 
landscape painter, or in animal life if you are to 
be a painter of animals, or in human beings if you 
are to be a portrait painter. Pour in, pour in, 
pour in. 

Would you have psychology to come forth from 
your subconscious self? Then you must study 
psychology, and read psychology, and think psy- 
chology, and dream psychology. Major in psy- 
chology in school. Master the theories of 
psychology as held by reputable teachers of 
psychology in the standard colleges and univer- 
sities. Master the results of experimental psy- 
chology. Get behind psychology into the realms 
of physiology and biology. Form convictions on 
the philosophy of psychological phenomena. 
Read the books that deal with the applications of 
psychology, in education and practical life. Be 
an experimenter in psychology yourself. Make 
excursions into the byways of psychology, in 


80 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


psycho-religious literature. And, after a while, 
you will be able to produce psychology, in book or 
lecture. 

Would you be a specialist in religious educa- 
tion? Then pour in religious education for 
twenty years. Go through the schools, majoring 
in education. Master the whole field of education 
in general plus the literature and nomenclature 
and theory and practice of religious education, 
Engage in teaching in various types of schools, 
secular and religious. Read educational litera- 
ture, associate with educational people, conduct 
educational experiments. Pour in, pour in, pour 
in; and by and by there will come forth from your 
subconscious self substantial contributions in the 
theory and practice of religious education. 

So in every other department of human effort. 
Decide now what you want to be fifteen or twenty 
years hence, and begin to pour in what you want 
to come out, and keep it up, and you will not be 
disappointed. 

This is the psychological conclusion of the whole 
matter, and it is the law of God: ‘‘Whatsoever 
a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’’ 


II. THE PULLING-OUT PROCESS 


What is poured in cannot be trusted to come out 
of its own initiative. It must be pulled out. 

What is poured in must be pulled out in one of 
two ways, through deliberate conscious effort, on 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 81 


the part of the individual himself, or by outside 
stimuli. 

My wife said to me, one day, ‘‘I want you to tell 
me what you think of this story.’’ 

IT said, ‘‘ All right; read it to me.’’ She read 
it, and we discussed it. 

Then she said, ‘‘ Help me to name it.’’ 

I said, ‘‘All right; take your paper and pencil 
and write down all the names we can think of.’’ 

The story was one in a cycle of five Baby Jésus 
stories for younger children, and this one pic- 
tured the flight into Egypt. 

At the end of about an hour, we had written 
out on a sheet of paper forty-four possible names 
for this story, among them being the following: 
Saved from Danger; Saved from Harm; Saving 
the Baby from Danger; The Baby’s Safety; Tak- 
ing Care of the Baby; Caring for the Baby; The 
Baby’s Friends; A Good Baby and a Bad King; 
A Hurried Journey; Going Away; Away and 
Away; A Trying Trip; Baby’s Best Friends. 
This last was the title that was finally selected, 
and the story was called ‘‘Baby’s Best Friends.”’ 

This book was named in much the same way; 
and so were the chapters. The contents of the 
chapters are being slowly, deliberately, with per- 
sistent effort, and with the aid of the stimuli of 
notes and clippings that have been collected 
through the years, pulled up and out from the 
depths of my subconsciousness. They are made 
out of what has been poured in during a consid- 


82 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


erable period by means of studying and reading 
and teaching. 

No human being is equipped with an automatic 
self-pumping apparatus that pumps out thought 
as needed. No lazy individual can hope to get 
anything out of his subconscious self that will 
have any particular value, either for himself or 
anybody else. He who presumes upon his sub- 
conscious self is doomed to disappointment. 

A woman came to me once with a view to taking 
a course in psychology, and she said: ‘‘I want 
to learn to concentrate. My trouble is that I can- 
not concentrate properly. I have been studying 
concentration for three years, but I do not seem 
to make the progress I ’d like to make, and I 
thought perhaps your course in psychology might 
help me.’’ 

I tried to give her some idea of the two courses 
in psychology which I was offering at the time, 
but I soon saw that she was not interested, in fact 
that she was not really listening to me at all, that 
she seemed incapable of concentrating on any- 
thing that anybody was saying to her—of really 
giving attention to anything at all. She was 
using the term ‘‘concentration’’ in a wholly un- 
scientific way, putting into it an arbitrary content 
drawn from certain psycho-religious assumptions. 
She was seeking to concentrate on herself. She 
was looking inside herself in a lazy, dreamy, be- 
fuddled fashion, and she did not see very much, 
because there was not very much in there to see. 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 83 


What she needed was to concentrate on some- 
thing outside of herself, and to pour in, but I 
could not see that there was very much hope of 
her ever doing that. Her concept of psychology 
was too limited, and she was too established in a 
wrong attitude toward the whole subject to make 
it worth my while to waste any more time with 
her, and I dismissed her with: ‘‘I fear that my 
psychology would not help you, and I advise you 
not to spend any time in this school.”’ 

In the pulling-out process, it is advisable de- 
liberately to plan for frequent brief periods of 
quiet, and relaxation, and rest, provided these 
periods are preceded and followed by longer pe- 
riods of intense awakeness, aliveness, attentive- 
ness, and inventiveness. 

The occasional inspirations that seem to come 
to us unsought and unassisted are in reality but 
the overflow of intelligent, honest, balanced, per- 
sistent, individual thinking, based on the thinking 
of others, in pouring into and pulling out of the 
subconscious self. 

The real thinker consciously and deliberately 
digs around in his subconscious self; and digs up 
and brings out the gerfuine good things of life— 
things that nourish and make strong, beautiful, 
and worth while all individual and social life. 

In this pulling-up-and-out process, if we may 
call it that, the conditions of thinking need to be 
favorable. Distracting sights and sounds need 
to be shut out. The thinker needs to be alone, in 


84 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


surroundings that are favorable to the best 
thinking. 

Of course, it would be a mistake to make the 
absence of ideal conditions an excuse for not work- 
ing at all. Some very good mental work is done 
under conditions that are not at all ideal, but at 
the same time it is true that the better the con- 
ditions are, the better the work ought to be. 

Some of my own best thinking has been done 
late at night, and sometimes after I was in bed, 
and everybody in the house was asleep. As I now 
write, I am sitting at my own desk m my den, in 
a room apart from the rest of the family, sur- 
rounded by books and pictures that I love. 
Sometimes I have gone to a hotel and shut myself 
into a room for a period of uninterrupted literary 
effort. Some of my best thinking is accomplished 
on the train, when the telephones cannot reach me, 
and there is nothing to do except to think. 

It is important to keep in mind that, back of 
all the thinking that pulls out the real work of 
a lifetime from the subconscious self, is another 
kind of thinking, namely, the thinking that keeps 
the body and mind clean and fit; and this can be 
done only at the price of eternal vigilance, per- 
sistent effort, and heroic self-assertion. 

For both the body and the mind, this means to 
keep out the bad and to get in the good, as my 
little poem says. 

It means wholesome food and suitable exercise 
—daily. It must be done by the individual him- 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 85 


self. Nobody will do it for him. Indeed, nobody 
ean do it for anybody else. Cleanness and fitness 
of body and mind must be personally and con- 
tinuously achieved. 

In addition to the effort which must be put 
forth by the individual, from the inside of him- 
self, in bringing to the surface experience pre- 
cipitations, so to speak, it is important to 
understand that this pulling out from the subcon- 
scious self may be accomplished also by outside 
stimuli. 

This is the explanation of the current saying 
that a man never knows what he ean do until he 
is compelled to do it. If a man must, frequently 
he will, even though he had thought it impossible. 

It is through the stimulation of compelling cir- 
cumstances, of conscious need, of apparent neces- 
sity, of imminent emergency, that some of the 
finest achievements of men have been pricked and 
urged and stung out of the subconscious self into 
external realization. 

It was the dire condition of his enslaved people 
in Egypt and the burning bush that drew Moses 
out of his retirement on a sheep ranch, and pulled 
out of his subeconsciousness the hidden resources 
of a matchless education, just as he had deter- 
mined to spend the last third of his life in quiet 
contemplation, and made him one of the outstand- 
ing leaders of all time. 

It was the ignorance and the squabbles and the 
danger of Christian collapse on the part of his 


86 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


new converts from paganism that pulled out of 
the apostle Paul’s subconsciousness some of the 
greatest of his epistles, after he was chained to 
two Roman soldiers to languish and to die. 

It was Cesar-worship and the ruthless per- 
secuting of the non-conforming Christians in the 
reign of Domitian, in a. pD. 95, that evoked, through 
a ‘‘trance on the Lord’s Day,’’ from the subcon- 
scious self of Pastor John on his island prison, in 
the midst of toilsome labor in a marble quarry, 
to which he had been condemned as a dangerous 
political traitor, the writing of that most brilliant 
book called Revelation, which had in it enough 
of spiritual inspiration to put new hope into the 
scattered, harassed followers of the Nazarene and 
to encourage them to defy Rome and to remain 
true to their religious convictions, and thus saved 
the Bible and Christianity for all coming gen- 
erations. 

What is the patent conclusion of the whole mat- 
ter for every human being? It is this: Do not 
whine, do not give up, do not despair, when you 
are buffeted by cwrcumstances. Fight. This 
may be your great life opportunity. These blows 
are not meant to be your death blows, but rather 
to be helpful stimult. Do not seek the easy places 
m life, but rather the places of opportunity. 
Welcome the ill wind that may blow you some 
good, the buffetings that will sting you into action, 
the necessity that 1s the mother of invention, the 
blessings in disguise, the failure that puts you on 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 87 


your mettle, the responsibility that brings a sense 
of obligation. 

When William Gibbs McAdoo was mobilizing 
the finances of the United States, under the stress 
of the World War, and at the same time super- 
vising the railroads of the country, a New York 
newspaper editor wrote: ‘‘With many men who 
think deeply the subconscious mind takes over 
many of the day’s problems and gives back the 
answer at unexpected moments. Mr. McAdoo has 
found that his mind is up to such tricks, and he 
places a tablet and pencil beside his bed. He is 
awakened at night by reports from this busy mind, 
and he jots down on the pad notes bearing upon 
the questions. In the morning he goes to his ofiice, 
and once he has started the machinery he pulls 
out of his side coat-pocket a number of sheets of 
paper from the night ledger. On these sheets are 
rude notes. One will bear the name of a man. 
Another will have a few figures, another will have 
a single word. But these notes bring back to him 
the thoughts which barely had time to register 
themselves on his conscious mind before he fell 
asleep.”’ 

Not only is it advisable to welcome the respon- 
sibilities that are thrust upon us, and to seek the 
hard jobs in life, but 2¢ will be found stumulatimg 
to seek the new and the different occasionally, to 
get out of the ruts. A rut, as some one has said, 
is simply a grave with both ends knocked out—a 
place for the dead to lie in. | 


88 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


Herein lies the argument for changing jobs 
sometimes, for forming new friendships while 
holding the same job, for coming into healthful 
touch with personalities outside the little indi- 
vidual world, for reading new types of books, for 
seeing unusual places. 

I used to live about four miles from my office. 
I would take the street-car nearest to my home 
occasionally, then a car on another line two blocks 
away another morning, and a car on a differ- 
ent line three blocks distant a third morning. 
Sometimes I would ride down in a ‘‘jitney,’’ and 
once in a while in a neighbor’s car—never in my 
own. Frequently I would choose to walk. 

I never take a vacation at any place where I 
spent the previous summer—and not because I 
did not pay my last summer’s board-bill either. 
Inever have been able to understand why any man 
wants to buy a cottage and tie himself and his 
family, summer after summer, to a particular 
ocean or mountain resort. Every summer I want 
a change of scenery and people and food. I want 
a new brand of mosquitoes or ticks. I find it 
more stimulating. 

It is a mistake to read one newspaper exclu- 
sively all the time. Every one should read at 
least two daily papers. And even then there is 
enough danger of stagnation. 

I have made it a practice to see and hear great 
speakers, and musicians, and actors, and writers, 
whenever I could afford the time and the money. 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 89 


While a college student, I once spent my last 
half-dollar to hear Henry M. Stanley lecture. 
He was a very poor speaker. What he said could 
not be heard back of the third or fourth row from 
the front, but it was worth my half-dollar just to 
see him. He was the man who had done some- 
thing out of the ordinary. He had gone into the 
depths of darkest Africa and found the great 
David Livingstone. 

Some time ago, I dropped practically everything 
else to attend a series of ‘‘authors’ afternoons’’ 
during ‘‘Book Week’’ at a New York department- 
store. I found a seat well toward the front each 
time, and I saw and heard many of the popular 
authors of the day. It was something different 
for me. It was stimulating. 

In discussing the importance of outside stimuli, 
mention needs to be made of what usually, for 
lack of a better name, is called chance. While 
browsing around in a library, one day, I 
‘“stumbled upon’’ a book that helped to change the 
whole current of my life. 

On another occasion I met, in a conference, 
without any prearrangement on my own part, a 
man who, later, helped me to realize a life am- 
bition. 

On the train, some years ago, while a college 
teacher, I met the dean of the department of 
education in our state university, and, as we 
talked, he said, ‘‘What do you think of the re- 
capitulation theory?”’ 


90 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


I said, ‘‘I do not think much of it,’’ and quickly 
changed the subject. As a matter of fact, I did 
not think of it at all. I had never heard of it. 
And I have always had my suspicions that the 
learned educator had his suspicions. 

At any rate, I was deeply humiliated, and, at 
the first opportunity, I read everything I could 
find on the ‘‘recapitulation theory’’; and, at the 
same time, I made the resolve that I would master 
pedagogical theory and practice and history, and 
would dip more deeply into educational psychol- 
ogy. That was a turning-point in my life. 


DISCUSSION 


1. Dr. William J. Mayo, of Rochester, Minne- 
sota, said in an address before the American Col- 
lege of Surgeons, a few months ago, according 
to a newspaper report: ‘‘Man, when most alert 
and most alive to his physical condition, is only 
twenty-five per cent conscious of what he is doing. 
The unconscious mind controls seventy-five per 
cent of the body’s efficiency. The unconscious 
mind always is master, and the success of many 
‘healers’ is due entirely to their pernicious appeal 
to the unconscious mind. Disturbances in the 
body that more or less resemble real diseases are 
recognized by the trained observer as false, but 
the unenlightened patient accepts them as true. 
Herein les the success of the cults and quack- 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES OF 


eries, who ‘play’ these ‘diseases’ for the real thing 
and reap a harvest.”’ 

2. A writer recently called attention to the 
‘Sease with which a certain public is taken in by 
quasi-religious faith healers, and lecturers on 
‘practical psychology.’ ’’ Only recently, in New 
York, a number of idle, well-dressed women 
flocked to hear a lecturer who advertised himself 
as an ‘‘internationally famous authority on body- 
building, personality and rejuvenation.’’ After 
hearing his ‘‘free’’ lecture, each of them paid 
him a fifty-dollar fee for ten ‘‘lessons’’ in class. 
The less ‘these deluded women understood of what 
the ‘‘handsome professor’’ was saying, the more 
wonderful they thought it must be, and the more 
enthusiastically they applauded. 

3. It was my privilege, recently, to view, in the 
J. Pierpont Morgan collection, the original manu- 
scripts of some of the great masterpieces of HKing- 
lish literature written during the last three or four 
hundred years. ‘There were the very words in the 
handwriting of the authors themselves, and, in 
every case, there were emendations, changes, eli- 
sions, marginal additions. In some instances, 
the changed page was rewritten, then changed and 
rewritten again and again. Evidently, the men 
who wrote the great poems and the masterpieces 
of prose did not simply dash them off. : Even the 
‘‘Cotter’s Saturday Night’’ of that ‘‘easy gen- 
ius,’’ Robert Burns, is, in the original manuscript, 


92 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


a very much mutilated ‘‘Cotter’s Saturday 
Night.’’ | 

4. Norbert Casterbert, the French scientist, is 
credited, in the ‘‘National Geographic Magazine’’ 
for August, 1924, with ‘‘remarkable discoveries 
of sculpture and drawings produced by Magdale- 
nian man twenty thousand years ago in a great 
limestone cave near Montespan in southern 
France.’’ And it is stated that he began as a 
child the ‘‘pouring in’’ of anthropology, visiting 
the museums to study the collections of prehis- 
toric man that had been accumulated by the scien- 
tists, reading the books on the subject, and, after 
a while, hunting in the caves himself. 

5. In his ‘‘Dynamic Psychology,’’? Thomas 
Verner Moore says: ‘‘Psychoanalysis has sev- 
eral limitations. First, it is limited by the men- 
tality of the patient. No matter what the 
patient’s disorder, he is not a good subject for 
psychoanalytic treatment unless he is of good in- 
tellectual ability. The stupid cannot be psycho-— 
analyzed. Secondly, psychoanalysis is limited by 
the time factor. According to Freud, you must 
spend hours every week for months before you 
can work a cure. If this is the case, very few 
patients can be subjected to a psychoanalytic 
course of treatment. And in the third place, it 
is limited by the type of disorder. Not all psy- 
choneuroses are amenable to treatment. I wit- 
nessed the utter failure of psychoanalysis in the 
treatment of the war neuroses, and a little later, 


SUBCONSCIOUS RESOURCES 93 


I had the pleasure of seeing and taking part in the 
suggestive method of therapy which was made use 
of with such brilliant success in the American 
neurological hospitals in France.”’ 

6. For helpful chapters, see Hollingsworth and 
Poffenberger’s ‘‘Applied Psychology,’’ Paton’s 
‘‘Human Behavior,’’ Saxby’s ‘‘Education of Be- 
havior,’’ Patrick’s ‘‘Psychology of Relaxation,’’ 
Adam’s ‘‘Making the Most of One’s Mind,’’ 
Hawksworth’s ‘‘The Workshop of the Muind,”’ 
Pyle’s ‘‘The Psychology of Learning,’’ Robin- 
son’s ‘‘The Mind in the Making,’’ Starch’s ‘‘ Edu- 
cational Psychology,’’ Swift’s ‘‘Psychology and 
the Day’s Work,’’ Wallas’s ‘‘Our Social Heri- 
tage,’?’ Warren’s ‘‘The Elements of Human Psy- 
chology,’’ Woodworth’s ‘‘Dynamic Psychology,”’ 
MeDougall’s ‘‘Outline of Psychology.’’ 


CHAPTER V 
LEARNING TO REMEMBER 


The basic condition of a good memory is confi- 
dence. When one says, ‘‘I cannot remember 
names,’’ or ‘‘I cannot remember dates,’’ or ‘‘I 
cannot remember poetry,’’ or ‘‘I cannot remem- 
ber engagements,’’ or ‘‘I cannot remember tele- 
phone numbers,’’ then, as a matter of course, he 
will not remember. 

‘‘T cannot’’ is the only real obstacle to a good 
memory. ‘‘I cannot’’ is the only thing that will 
keep anybody from remembering anything he 
really wants to remember. 

I put this just as strongly as I know how to 
put it, right at the beginning of this discussion, 
because there is no use trying to help anybody to 
remember anything until you can persuade him 
to get rid of that accursed ‘‘I cannot.’’ 


I. MEMORY IMPROVES WITH AGE 


The ‘‘golden memory period’’ is not, as we 
have so often heard, from nine to twelve, but 
from forty to sixty, when any one has more 


associative hooks on which to hang his accum- 
94. 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 95 


ulating observations, and knows better the laws 
of memory—provided he keeps alive in the head, 
and does not hold ‘‘I cannot’’ in front of him all 
the time, as a stumbling-block. } 

The only basis of truth for the false belief that 
the junior period is preéminently the memory 
period is the fact that boys and girls about nine 
to twelve years of age can memorize passages of 
considerable length for the first time in their 
lives. 

These same boys and girls will do better mem- 
orizing at twenty, and still better at forty, and 
better still at fifty, providing memorizing is not 
overdone with them now, and provided also that 
all their memorizing now and later shall be 
rationalized and motivated and vitalized. 

I am not using the term ‘‘rationalize’’ here in 
the restricted sense in which it has come to be 
used in philosophy, that of causing our wrong 
thinking to appear rational to ourselves, but 
rather in the sense of causing to be understood 
the meaning of that which is true. 

Most of us have suffered from the wrong kind 
of memorizing. We were compelled to memorize 
words without understanding and appreciation, 
and to repeat them parrot-fashion, and were thus 
prejudiced against memorizing. It was a me- 
chanical, uninteresting performance, and we es- 
ecaped from the whole business as soon as 
possible. 

But we need now, in our maturer years, to 


96 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


overcome prejudice with reason, and to develop 
in ourselves a different attitude toward memo- 
rizing, and to learn how to remember anything 
which we ought to remember. 

In her ‘‘Moonlight Schools,’’ Cora Wilson 
Stewart tells how she and her assistant public 
school teachers, in Rowan County, Kentucky, 
taught the more than fifteen hundred illiterates in 
that county to read and write and ‘‘figure’’ and 
to recite poetry. In one moonlight school of 
twelve pupils, all were past fifty years of 
age, and some of them were past eighty. A 
man of eighty-seven and a woman of eighty-six 
were among those who memorized and recited 
Longfellow’s ‘‘Psalm of Life.’’ 

A minister, at the close of one of my addresses, 
said to me: ‘‘I was glad to hear you say what 
you did about memory improving with age. My 
own experience bears out your statement. I 
have made it a rule for years to memorize two 
new poems every week, one to be used in my 
morning sermon, and another for the evening 
sermon; and now, at sixty-nine years of age, I 
find it easier to do this than it was twenty years 
ago. The explanation is that I have always liked 
poetry, that my interest in it has grown with the 
years, and that I have increasingly mastered the 
method of learning poetry.”’ 

In New York City, there is a woman of fine 
culture and beautiful character, who, in talking 
to a group of college girls, recently, said: 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 97 


‘‘Make it a rule to memorize something every 
day that will enrich your life and make you worth 
more to the world. I never let a single day pass 
without memorizing some gem of prose or poetry, 
and I am now seventy-seven years of age.’’ 

The students who heard her speak were 
charmed with her personality and inspired by her 
words, and one of them said, ‘‘I should not mind 
getting old if I knew I could be like her.’’ An- 
other student said, ‘‘Perhaps we can be like her, 
when we get to be her age, if we keep learning 
all our lives as she has done.’’ 

Is it not about time for us all to cease slander- 
ing ourselves with ‘‘I cannot remember’’? If 
we must do and say the wrong thing, let us rather 
say honestly, ‘‘I do not want to remember,’’ or 
‘“T am too lazy to remember.’’ 


Il. MEMORY DEPENDENT ON 
LEARNING 


Next to confidence in learning to remember, 
the most important thing to hold to is that a good 
memory is dependent on good learning. 

There is no short cut to remembering. There 
is no trick about it. Nobody is born with a good 
memory. Nobody is born with any kind of 
memory, in fact, unless the instinctive impulses 
common to all human beings may be called racial 
memories. 

Any memory in anybody must be acquired 


98 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


slowly, indirectly, through the paying of the 
price. It is the inevitable product of good 
learning. 

Not only is there not any such thing as ‘‘a 
memory,’’ as a faculty of the mind, but there is 
no such thing as learning to remember by trying 
to remember, any more than any one can be 
happy by trying to be happy. Any one who 
chases happiness finds it to be a will-o’-the-wisp 
with which he never catches up; but, when he 
forgets about being happy, and finds his job 
in life, and works at it intelligently and whole- 
heartedly, then happiness comes to him without 
being invited. 

So it is with memory. Let any one cease 
trying to remember, and let him learn how 
to learn, and then actually learn, and he will find 
that he remembers as a matter of course, without 
any worrying about it. Every good learner has 
a good memory. 

The human mind is not composed of faculties. 
The belief that it is came from the old, now dis- 
carded, psychology. We believe to-day, on the 
basis of many experiments, that the human mind 
functions as a whole, and that every moment of 
consciousness is a moment of perceiving, judging, 
reasoning, imagining, willing, remembering. In 
other words, the mind is a unity, and it functions 
as a whole. Memory simply is one phase of this 
functioning of consciousness. Memory, there- 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 99 


fore, will be good if the whole thinking process 
is good. 

Before I knew this truth, while teaching in a 
woman’s college, the alumnz association decided 
to present, on the beautiful old campus, a pag- 
eant, portraying the history of the town and of the 
college. The pageant had been written by the 
brilliant president of the alumne association, who 
asked me to be ‘‘the prophet,’’ and to speak a 
few words of introduction at the beginning of the 
pageant, and to close it with a brief statement. 

The role seemed easy enough, and I readily 
consented to be the prophet. A few days later, 
the author of the pageant put into my hands two 
large sheets of paper on which were written, in 
a fine feminine hand, the words of my ‘‘pro- 
logue’’ and ‘‘epilogue,’’ with instructions for me 
to memorize them. 

When I looked at those closely written pages, 
and realized what I was expected to do, I said: 
‘*T cannot doit. I never could remember poetry. 
And this is blank verse, too. I could not memo- 
rize it in a thousand years. Why, this is more 
poetry than I have ever memorized in all my life. 
I cannot be the prophet in this pageant.’’ 

The president said: ‘‘But you have promised, 
and besides there is nobody else to do it. You 
have the voice and the stature for it, and you 
must do it.’’ 

I saw that I could not very well get out of it, 


100 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


and so reluctantly agreed to try to do something 
with it. When I found opportunity to begin the 
study of my ‘‘lines,’’ I said, ‘‘I cannot do it.’’ 
The prologue began as follows: 


‘‘Wild Spirit of the prairie, hail to thee! 

And thou, O winds and grasses bending low, 
Spirits of ground unbroken by the plow— 

To thee shall come the voice of him who toils 
And conquers. At the red man’s slow retreat 
Tall men of sterner fiber, hardy-souled, 

Shall win subsistence and shall build their huts. 
Crudely they built at first, for crude their lot, 
Their life a daily struggle—’’ 


And thus it ran along, twenty-seven lines of it, 
and then twenty-seven lines of the epilogue. I 
said: ‘‘I am done for, that is certain. If the 
stuff had rhyme, I might manage it, but I might 
about as easily tame that ‘wild spirit of the prai- 
rie’ as to master all those words so as to be able 
to stand before a crowd and repeat them from 
memory as though they were my own. But I 
suppose I must try it, for the sake of my position, 
and my reputation, and the college. It is too 
late to back out now. I will learn those fifty- 
four lines if it kills me.”’ 

So I went at it. I read over the twenty-seven 
lines of that prologue attentively, thoughtfully, 
sympathetically, right through from beginning to 
end, about one hundred times, until I had a 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 101 


vivid picture of the page in my head, and could 
repeat the words from memory, without making 
a mistake. Then I learned the epilogue in the 
same way. 

When the night of the pageant came, I ap- 
peared in prophetic garb, with robe and girdle 
and sandals and beard and turban, stood before 
that great outdoor throng of people, and spoke 
those fifty-four lines of blank verse as if they had 
been my own, without mistake or hesitation. I 
had learned them; that was all. I did what any- 
body could have done if he had worked at it as 
I had worked. 


III. IMPORTANCE OF ATTENTION 


A third prerequisite of a good memory is at- 
tention. In learning that blank verse, I brought 
to it determined and prolonged attention. I fo- 
cused the stream of consciousness upon it until I 
had learned it. There was nothing else in the 
world in which I was interested, to which I 
thought it worth while to give attention, until I 
had learned that poetry. 

So it is with learning names, for instance. 
Several years ago, there appeared, in ‘‘Boy 
Life,’’ an article from which I quote the follow- 
ing: ‘‘ John L. Horgan, a Cincinnati hotel man, 
can remember and call by name one hundred 
thousand people. Starting in the hotel business 
when seventeen years old, he at once realized 


102 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


that the ability to call a guest by name would 
be a valuable asset to a hotel man. Therefore 
he set himself to the cultivation of his mem- 
ory. Regarding the way to remember people, 
he says: 

‘¢¢ Attention comes first. When you meet a 
man, look squarely into his face for a second and 
forget everything else in the world. Etch his 
features into your brain; you can do it if you will 
keep practising. Then you must learn not only 
how to pronounce his name, but to see it. You 
must visualize it so that it appears on your 
brain as clearly as if it were written on paper. 
The name will bring up a vision of the man; the 
man a vision of the name.’ 

‘¢ “A great aid in developing memory,’ says 
Mr. Horgan, ‘is learning to see things at a 
glance. Glance quickly at the articles in a shop 
window, then see how many you can recall when 
you pass on. Look at the passengers or adver- 
tisements in a street-car, then shut your eyes and 
try to visualize them.’ ”’ 


IV. VALUE OF THOROUGH UNDER- 
STANDING 


In thinking of attention in learning, it is im- 
portant to keep in mind that it must be sustained 
and directed and supplemented until there is 
thorough wnderstanding of what is being learned. 
Then it will be remembered. 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 103 


The rule is that no words should be memorized 
until they are first understood. In my ‘‘Dy- 
namics of Teaching,’’ I said, ‘‘ Rote memory work 
in the Sunday school and parrot-like repetitions 
of the words of Scripture, catechisms, and hymns 
are devoid of religious value.’’ I quote from 
this book also the following: ‘‘It must be under- 
stood, however, that no amount of skill on the part 
of the teacher can make memory work effective 
unless the memory materials themselves are pro- 
perly graded, containing only such ideas as are 
within the comprehension of the pupils for whom 
this material is intended. Furthermore, in hand- 
ling the memory materials, the teacher should 
not be content with mere explanation of words, 
but should make these words real, attractive, and 
effective through the use of stories, pictures, ob- 
jects, experiences, and in various other ways.’’ 


V. ASSOCIATION IN LEARNING 


Another important law in learning, if we would 
remember what we learn, is the law of associ- 
ation. ‘‘We recall experiences through their 
association with other experiences,’’ says one of 
the psychologists. When we recall one thing 
that we have learned, we tend to recall other 
things learned in association, just as when we get 
hold of one bead in a string we get the whole 
string, as William James said. 

When we hear the name ‘‘Abraham,’’ we at 


104 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


once think of ‘‘Isaac and Jacob,’’ because these 
three names were associated together in our 
learning of the biblical history. So we think of 
wife in connection with husband, black with white, 
Missouri with St. Louis, and Pennsylvania with 
Philadelphia. 

In all learning we should associate, in our 
thinking, what is being learned with what already 
has been learned, the new with the old, and also 
each part of the new with its other parts. 

It is important in forming associations in learn- 
ing that these associations be strongly estab- 
lished, else association will work the wrong way 
in memory. 

A neighbor of ours told of a young woman, a 
nurse, who was going out to the home of a pa- 
tient, in Cincinnati, Ohio. When she boarded the 
street-car, she said to the conductor, ‘‘Let me off 
at Epsom Street, please.’’ 

The conductor said, ‘‘There is no such street, 
madam.’’ 

‘*Oh,’’ said the nurse, ‘‘there must be, for they 
told me to get off there.’’ 

A man across the aisle from her said to the 
conductor, ‘‘The lady has her salts mixed. Let 
her off at Rochelle Street.’’ 

It is important, also, in learning, that the 
associations formed should be normal and usable, 
and not artificial. 

Some of us, when we were children, unfortu- 
nately, were taught to repeat the following: 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 105 


‘‘Thirty days hath September, 
April, June and November. 

All the rest have thirty-one 

Save February, which alone 

Has twenty-eight, and one day more 
We add to it each year in four.”’ 


This bit of verse is neither poetry nor sense. 
To this day, I cannot tell, offhand, how many 
days there are in April, for instance, until I begin 
at the beginning and chant this primitive refrain. 

These lines got into my nervous system when I 
was a boy, and now I cannot get them out. How 
much better it would have been if, instead of 
resorting to this artificial device, this mnemonic, 
they had taught me the names of the months 
of the year in a rational way! 

Why could they not have taught them to me in 
such a way that I could have, for the rest of my 
life, been able to give, without hesitation, the 
number of any month and the number of days 
in it? 

If I had actually learned the months of the 
year, with normal, usable associations, I could 
remember them now; but, as it is, I cannot re- 
member them, because I never did learn them. 
I remember the bit of verse, the mnemonic. I 
never can get rid‘of that. I wish I could, but I 
cannot, ever, as long as [ live. 

My position is that of a man who, in building 
a house, built the scaffolding more solidly than 


106 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


the house itself, and now cannot tear down the 
scaffolding and get rid of it, after the house is 
built—if indeed the house ever is finished. 

So it is with all mnemonics. They are per- 
manent scaffoldings that are unnecessary and 
unusable. 

When I was learning the Hebrew language, I 
came to the verb which means ‘‘to stumble,’’ and 
I noted that it sounded a little like ‘‘cow shall.’’ 
I associated this ancient word, therefore with this 
modern ruminant, and said, ‘‘The cow shall 
stumble.’” Then I said, ‘‘There, 1 have that 
word.’’ 

I did have that word, and I still have it, but I 
have also the cow, and I cannot get rid of her. 
The cow is bigger than the Hebrew word—bigger 
than all the Hebrew language. 

I should have associated this word with the 
original root word, or language stem, and with 
other words from this language stem; and I then 
should have had a number of normal, usable 
associations, instead of having an old cow for- 
ever grazing in the front of my mental yard. 

In the learning of names of persons, the more 
normal, usable associations, the better. Associ- 
ate the name with the initials, the owner’s voca- 
tion, and any peculiarities in appearance, speech 
and walk. Associate the name with the name 
of some one else whom you already know. In 
associating, note likenesses and differences. 

In learning names, the more you learn, the 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 107 


more easily you will remember. Get one bead, 
and you get all on the string; and, the longer 
the string, the easier it is to get hold of one bead. 
It is easier, therefore, to remember a man’s name, 
and his initials, and his business, and his peculi- 
arities, than it is to remember his name alone. 


VI. IMAGINATION IN MEMORY 


Another important element in learning in such 
a way as to be able to remember what is learned 
is imagination. Vivid mental pictures are pri- 
mary aids in remembering what has been learned. 

My hostess, on one occasion, in a town where I 
was lecturing, was kind enough to play for me on 
the piano a number of the great musical classics, 
among them some of Beethoven’s Sonatas. 

I said, ‘‘Do you never have any music before 
you when you play?’’ 

She said: ‘‘Very rarely. I was taught to 
memorize everything I played. I can play almost 
any of Beethoven’s Sonatas from memory. I can 
remember any piece of music I have really 
learned.’’ 

I said, ‘‘ You must find it a very difficult task to 
memorize a long’ difficult piece of music.’’ 

She answered: ‘‘Not at all. After I once 
learned how to learn music, I had no difficulty 
either in learning or remembering it.’’ 

‘¢What is your method in learning music?’’ I 
asked. 


108 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


‘‘The first thing I do,’’ she said, ‘‘is to make a 
thorough analysis of the composition, comparing 
it with others I have learned, comparing one 
part with the other parts, noting the forms and 
the changes from theme to theme, and so on, going 
over it again and again until I have a clear pic- 
ture of it in my mind, and afterward, when I play 
it, I look at the notes in the picture in my mind 
instead of looking at them on paper.’’ 

As I sit in my den, writing, I can see the West 
Side Subway in New York, from Chambers Street 
to 181st Street, my ‘‘home’’ stop, and check off 
the express stops in order—Fourteenth Street, 
Pennsylvania, Times Square, Seventy-second 
Street, Ninety-sixth, 103d, 110th, 116th, 125th, 
137th, 145th, 157th, and 168th. I think I also 
could name all the local stops between Chambers 
Street and Ninety-sixth Street. To get a series 
of locations or events in a mental picture, in 
order of location or time, makes memory easy. 


VII. INTEREST IS ESSENTIAL 


Interest also is an important factor in all 
learning, if we are going to remember what we 
learn. We need to learn with enthusiastic in- 
terest. We need to be whole-heartedly interested 
in everything we undertake to learn. This means 
to learn with feeling, with appreciation, with a 
first-hand sense of value. 

We never forget our good times. There stands 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 109 


out, in my memory, clearly and distinctly, from 
an experience in the third year of my life, the 
picture of a man in tights, with a balancing-pole, 
walking a rope stretched across the street, from 
building to building, not far from our house. 

As I looked at that man walking to and fro, 
and jumping up and down on that rope, I was 
having a wonderful time. It was a most amazing 
performance. My feelings were strongly in- 
volved. In the making of that ‘‘negative’’ on 
my brain, the emotional light was good. 

Herein lies the argument for making all edu- 
cation entertaining and delightful, for a sense 
of humor in the teacher, and for attractive edu- 
cational environment. 

It is a reason also why we should bring the 
play spirit into all our learning, throwing our- 
selves into it with a gay abandon that will make 
it a real pleasure. Then we shall remember 
what we learn. 

Psychologists are accustomed to divide inter- 
ests into two general classes. They speak of 
‘‘natural’’ interests, which are instinctive, and 
of ‘‘artificial’’ interests, which are acquired. 
Prof. KE. A. Kirkpatrick, in his ‘‘Individual in 
the Making,’’ says, ‘‘Without interest to unify 
our mental life, consciousness would be a jumble 
of miscellaneous states, while with it all are re- 
lated and unified by whatever interest, momentary 
or permanent, serves as a determining principle 
of selection and organization.”’ 


110 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


VIII. MOTIVES IN LEARNING 


To learn with interest means that we need 
continuously to provide ourselves with impelling 
motives in our learning. 

Taking the lowest motive first, a good memory 
is an important aid in the making of money. It 
is said that the wealthiest man in the world has 
an uncanny memory for business details. And 
it will fall short of the mark to say that he was 
born with this remarkable memory. He culti- 
vated it through long years of intense application. 

Considering next what may be regarded as the 
highest motive, he who would render the best 
service to humanity through his life must have a 
good memory for names and faces, for facts, for 
appointments, for ideas, and so on indefinitely. 

In between these two motives, the lowest and the 
highest, is a wide range of motives which every 
individual needs to develop in himself if he ex- 
pects to be a real leader among men. If, for 
instance, any one desires to have many friends, 
he must have a good memory for names and faces, 
and for the interests and activities of others. 

It is said that Jo Anderson, a druggist in 
Chattanooga, Tennessee, knows twenty thousand 
people so that he can recognize them and eall 
them by name, and that there is not a town of 
five thousand population in the United States in 
which he has not a personal friend. He says: 
‘‘T am not interested in memory stunts, but I am 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER Eb 


interested in folks. That is why itis no trouble to 
me to remember names or faces. I am always 
interested in making new friends. Whenever I 
meet a man I look straight into his eyes, because 
I want to know the real man, and that is the best 
way to get at him—and I always remember the 
color of a person’s eyes.”’ 

All of us take it as a high compliment when 
others remember our names and our interests, 
and our words and deeds, and our likes and dis- 
likes. Why? It is proof positive that they have 
been thinking about us, that they are interested 
in us, that they hold us in esteem. 


IX. DETERMINATION IN LEARNING 


Still another important consideration in learn- 
‘ing in such a way as to remember is will power. 
In order to arrive at our memory destination, we 
must have unfailing determination. 

This determination applies not so much, I 
think, to the ‘‘intention to remember,’’ as has been 
held by some psychologists, but rather to the 
intention to learn. Intention to remember does 
not in itself enable any one to remember; but, 
more accurately speaking, it becomes a factor in 
learning. Desire to remember and the purpose 
to remember enter into motivation in learning. 
They develop interest and attention in learning, 
and thus indirectly Become factors in remember- 
ing. Later, in the actual remembering, determi- 


112 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


nation will again become a factor in the effort to 
recall. 

No one ever can hope to have a good memory, 
and to receive its rewards, unless he takes himself 
in hand and drives himself to continuous learning. 

He must learn to distinguish between the im- 
portant and the unimportant in his life, to ignore 
the non-essential, to pass by the frivolous, to 
look away from the ephemeral, to close his eyes 
to the harmful. It is just as important not to 
remember some things as it is to remember 
others, and therefore to determine not to give 
attention to them in the first place. 

He must doggedly determine to conquer lazi- 
ness and sloth and inertia and disinclination and 
carelessness and indifference, and all the rest of 
that shiftless family of undesirable aliens, if he 
would attain to his true inheritance of leader- 
ship. 

Dr. Russell H. Conwell, for many years pastor 
of the Baptist Temple in Philadelphia, still active 
in his eighty-second year, having given his ‘‘ Acres 
of Diamonds’’ lecture recently for the 6152nd 
time, says: ‘‘When I want to quote from the 
Bible, I close my eyes, and the entire page of the 
Bible and the quotation come before me, and I 
read it. This is a thing a teacher taught me back 
in the old Berkshire Hills, where I was born. 
There was a time, when I could go home after 
services and shut my eyes and see the congrega- 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 113 


tion of twenty-five hundred to which I had spoken, 
while row after row of seats would come before 
me, and I could see the people and recognize them, 
and check up and tell just who had missed church 
that night.’’ 


X. THE LAW OF USE 


There is one other thing to consider in connec- 
tion with memory, and that is use. Why learn 
anything unless you are likely to use it? Why 
so much effort for nothing? 

In our discussion of memory, we have con- 
sidered confidence, learning, attention, under- 
standing, association, imagination, interest, mo- 
tives, determination, and now use, which is not 
the least important. 

This last has to do with the selection of the 
materials of learning, and is a problem chiefly 
for the makers of school curricula; but it is at 
the same time a practical question for every indi- 
vidual, because, whatever the mistakes others 
made for us in our childhood, we ourselves are 
responsible for the selections we make during the 
remainder of our lives. 

Why should anybody who is not planning to be 
a freak in a circus side-show spend his time mem- 
orizing anything just to prove that he can do it? 

It is not reputation but use that counts chiefly 
in the functioning of that phase of the mind that 


114 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


we call memory. Let us therefore remember to 
learn to remember to use, if we would be true 
leaders in life. 


DISCUSSION 


1. Every individual should have a practical, 
balanced memory, unless his vocation makes ad- 
visable an extraordinary memory in one par- 
ticular respect. F.. Matthias Alexander, in his 
‘‘Constructive Conscious Control of the Individ- 
ual,’’ tells of a young man who had a perfectly 
useless abnormal memory for time-tables, and 
who could not remember anything else. He says 
of him: ‘‘If you asked him to look up a train to 
a particular place at, say, three o’clock, he would 
turn up the page, look over the particular train 
by running his eyes up and down the list of times 
of departures, and during this apparently cursory 
glance at the time-table he would memorize the 
whole list. Three months later, if you asked him 
to name the trains in the list departing between . 
any two hours you liked to name, you would be 
certain to receive a correct answer. But this 
same young man would continually leave his 
umbrella in the bus, go out to purchase some 
ordinary article for domestic use, and, forgetting 
what he had gone to fetch, return without it. 
In fact, in the general way of life, and judged by 
the ordinary standard of human intelligence, he 
was quite a hopeless person.”’ 


LEARNING TO REMEMBER 115 


2. William McDougall, in his ‘‘Outline of Psy- 
chology,’’ says: ‘‘Like all other thinking, re- 
membering is a conative activity. We remember 
and recollect effectively in proportion as we have 
strong motives for doing so. This truth is too 
often ignored; we are apt to regard our ‘memory’ 
fatalistically, as a mysterious automatic machine 
over which we have no control; either it works or 
it does not, and that is all there is to say of it. 
The physiological theory of memory, which iden- 
tifies it with neural habit, has done much to 
accentuate this fatalistic attitude toward our 
‘memories’; while at the same time the profes- 
sional memory-trainers have been claiming the 
most striking successes and making their for- 
tunes. It is true that, in the sphere of recollec- 
tion, our volition often seems to be peculiarly 
ineffective. But in no kind of task is our volition 
uniformly successful. And it is notorious that 
we remember emotionally exciting events better 
than others; which means that the strength of our 
conation, our interest, during any experience is 
a Iain condition of our remembering.’’ 

3. See helpful chapters on memory in Horne’s 
**Psychological Principles of Education,’’ Kit- 
son’s ‘‘How to Use Your Mind,’’ Colvin and 
Bagley’s ‘‘Human Behavior,’’ Hollingsworth 
and Poffenberger’s ‘‘Applied Psychology,’’ 
Betts’s ‘* The Mind and Its Education,’’ Bennett’s 
‘*Psychology and Self-development,’’ Breese’s 
*‘Psychology,’’ Givler’s ‘‘Psychology,’’ Pills- 


116 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


bury’s ‘‘Fundamentals of Psychology,’’ Platt’s 
‘““The Psychology of Thought and Feeling,’’ Sea- 
shore’s ‘‘Psychology in Daily Life,’’ Warren’s 
‘‘The Elements of Human Psychology.”’ 


CHAPTER VI 
EYES THAT SEE 


The eyes that see are not those two cameras 
in the front of the head, but what is back of them 
—imagination. 


I. PICTURES 


It has been shown that the heart of memory is 
the ‘‘memory image,’’ which is the mental picture 
that is recalled or reproduced in remembering. 

Would you remember telephone numbers? 
Then picture them in your mind vividly, in usable 
associations. 

I know a young woman who is membership 
secretary of a chamber of commerce in a city 
with a population of about three hundred thou- 
sand, and she can recall instantly the names of 
all the four thousand members, with initials and 
faces, business locations, and telephone numbers. 

This young woman can accomplish twice the 
amount of work in a day that can be done by 
any ordinary secretary, and she is worth more 
than twice as much to the organization, of course. 


She is not a genius, and she was not born with 
117 


118 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


a good memory for telephone numbers. It is 
simply that she has learned how to learn tele- 
phone numbers. She first writes down the num- 
ber, and then visualizes it, looking at it atten- 
tatively and thoughtfully, comparing it with 
other numbers, associating it with the name and 
face of the man and the firm and the street 
number, until she has in her mind a vivid picture 
of the number and exchange, together with usable 
associations. She has now learned the number, 
and she can recall it at will. 

I know a man who cannot even remember his 
own telephone number, because he never has 
seen it, has never visualized it. He is supposed 
to be a man with a good brain, too. His brain 
ought to be practically as good as new, in its 
numbers areas, since he never has used that part 
of it. 

When any one says, ‘‘I cannot remember dates 
in history,’’ he means simply that he is lazy in at 
least a part of his head. He can remember dates 
if he will learn dates, and he can learn dates if he 
will imagine dates—not the dates that are not, 
but the dates that are. 

In the study and teaching of Hebrew history, 
for instance, I can recall at will hundreds of 
dates because I have learned them with mental 
imagery. I have seen them with the eyes of the 
mind, and I have seen them in their normal set- 
tings, or usable associations, so that they are 
rich in significance. 


EYES THAT SEE 119 


There is nothing exceptional about it. Any- 
body could recall as many dates, with their as- 
sociated significances, if he had spent the neces- 
sary time on this history, living in imagination 
with these people, talking and writing about 
them. 

He eould begin with the patriarchal period, 
which, according to some scholars, was 1500-1350 
B. C., and he could talk for hours, without a 
note before him, of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob, of Chaldea and Mesopotamia and Pales- 
tine and Egypt, of tribal movements and nomadic 
life, of the religions of the peoples of those early 
times, of the beginnings of the Hebrew nation, of 
the mighty civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates 
and the Nile valleys. 

He could tell you, from memory, of the Egyp- 
tian period, 1850-1200, of Joseph and his broth- 
ers, of the Pharaohs, of the enslavement of the 
Hebrews, of Moses and the plagues and the de- 
liverance, of the five significant elements that 
entered into the making of the Hebrew race 
through the Egyptian experiences. 

He could tell you, also from memory, of the 
wilderness period, 1200-1150, and of its influence 
in the development of these remarkable people, 
relating fact after fact, indicating the benevolent 
purposes of God in the guise of suffering, 
evaluating events, portraying character, indicat- 
ing the applications to present-day life. 

So with the period of settlement and conquest, 


120 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


1150-1040, with Joshua and Samuel and the oth- 
ers; the united kingdom period, 1040-937, with 
David and Saul and Solomon; the divided king- 
dom period, 937-586, with the numerous kings in 
Judah and Israel, and the petty wars, and the 
great prophets, and the fall of Jerusalem; the 
Babylonian age, 586-538, with Ezekiel and his 
visions, and the literary and spiritual develop- 
ment of the Jews; the Persian age, 538-332, with 
the rebuilding of the temple and the walls; the 
Greek age, 332-168, with the conflicts between 
Hellenism, and Judaism; the Maccabean age 
168-63, with the persecutions by Antiochus 
Epiphanes and the revolt under the leadership 
of old Mattathias and his five splendid sons; and 
the Roman age, 63 B. C. to A. D. 135, with Pom- 
pey and Herod and the Tetrarchs and the pro- 
curators and Titus and Jesus and Paul. 

One of my students said to me once, ‘‘ Why, you 
make these Old Testament characters seem like 
real, sure-enough human beings.’’ 

‘Were they not real human beings?’’ I asked. 

‘“Yes,’’ she said, ‘‘I suppose they were, but I 
had never thought of them in that way before.’’ 

The student who masters the Hebrew history 
must study the biblical and non-biblical writings 
that deal with these most religious people of 
ancient times, their history and that of their 
neighbors, the geography and topography of the 
Bible lands and the lands of the peoples with 
whom they came into contact. He must study 


EYES THAT SEE 121 


these people and their literature with the aid of 
the standard Bible commentaries and dictionaries 
and geographies and pictures. It will be an aid 
also, if he cannot visit personally the lands in- 
volved, to use the Underwood stereographs, with 
the maps locating the views shown, and thus gain 
the consciousness of actually standing on the 
hallowed spots themselves. 

And he must use his imagination, on the basis 
of the facts obtainable, until these people and — 
their times seem to be actually present to him, 
and until he can see them moving around before 
him in their Oriental garb, engaged in their daily 
occupations. When he has thus visualized them, 
in the light of the best scholarship and his own 
personal thinking, he has learned the history, 
and he will remember the dates and names and 
events and places and beliefs and characters and 
achievements. Such a student has made a wise 
use of the function of consciousness that we call 
imagination. Similar results may be obtained in 
the study of any other history. 


II. UNDERSTANDING 


Not only is such study an aid to memory, but 
there can be no understanding of any history 
without a constant speeding up of imagination. 

This is why our understanding of any people 
is attained not so much through the reading of 
their annals as from their dramas and their art, 


122 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


which aid us in forming mental pictures of their 
internal and external life. 

We have not learned history, for instance, 
when we know that a battle was fought at a cer- 
tain place, on a certain date, by certain peoples. 
We must know why that battle was fought, and 
with what results. We must know what preceded 
and what followed, what led up to the battle and 
what came out of it. 

No event in history is of value to us so long 
as we know it merely as an event, but only when 
we come to know it as a significant event, and 
have a mental image of an effective expression 
of human emotions and purposes and aspira- 
tions; and this requires imagination. 

Many of the ancient historical records are so 
brief that they require considerable supplemenrt- 
ing from other history, from archeology, from 
geography, and from other related subjects. 

Take, for instance, an ancient record in a mod- 
ern version, a report of which is as follows: 

‘“On one of those days, when Jesus was teach- 
ing, some Pharisees and Doctors of the Law were 
sitting nearby (They had come from all the vil- 
lages in Galilee and Judea, and from Jerusalem; 
and the power of the Lord was upon Jesus, so 
that he could work cures), and there some men 
brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed. 
They tried to get him in and lay him before 
Jesus; but, finding no way of getting him in, 
owing to the crowd, they went up on the roof and 


EYES THAT SEE 123 


lowered him through the tiles, with his pallet, 
into the middle of the people and in front of 
Jesus.’’ 

In order to have any sort of adequate under- 
standing of this event, it is necessary to supple- 
ment the record with material from biblical 
scholarship and from common human experi- 
ence, on the principle that all human beings, in 
all ages, tend to act similarly under similar cir- 
cumstances. 

It is necessary to visualize an Oriental house 
built around a yard, or court, open to the sky, the 
surrounding rooms covered with fiat roofs, a 
crowd packed into the yard and the rooms 
around, a door which is at the same time the gate 
opening immediately into the street, the Great 
Teacher standing in the large room at the op- 
posite side of the inclosure away from the en- 
trance. 

It is necessary to see Jesus as He stands there, 
a large, masterful man, with a beard, and dressed 
in the flowing robes and the sandals that were 
worn by the teachers of the time. 

It is necessary to see a mixed crowd of men 
and women, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, 
in the varicolored robes that were worn in that 
day and country, the men with beards and tur- 
bans, and the women with their heads and shoul- 
ders covered with the soft, bright-colored ma- 
terials in vogue. 

It is necessary to see four men coming along 


124 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


the street toward the house, carrying a paralyzed 
man on a pallet, one man at each of the four 
corners; to see them trying in vain to get in at 
the door; to see them backing away, and then 
going around to the side of the house and up a 
stone stairway, the two men behind holding their 
end of the pallet higher than the others, to keep 
the man from rolling off; to see them on the flat 
roof, just above Jesus, lifting away the tiles and 
making the hole large enough for the pallet and 
the man; to see them lowering the pallet and the 
man until four men in the interrupted meeting 
below can reach the pallet and let it down in 
front of the Teacher; and then to look up and to 
see the four bearded faces of the men who 
brought the paralytic, one of them at each of the 
four corners of the hole in the roof, watching 
with deep interest and concern, listening to the 
wonderful words spoken by the Teacher, and see- 
ing the marvelous thing that took place. 

It is necessary to see all this, and more, if one 
would understand the meaning of this brief 
record of what was taking place that day in that 
Palestinian home, nearly two thousand years ago, 
when the people said, ‘‘We have seen marvelous 
things to-day !”’ 


Ill. REALITY 


It is through such imaginative study that we 
develop in ourselves a sense of historical reality. 


KYES THAT SEE | 125 


A man once said to a boy, ‘‘ What are you doing, 
my boy?”’ 

The boy said, ‘‘I am drawing a picture of 
Jesus.”’ 

The man said, ‘‘I would not draw a picture 
of Jesus if I were you, for I do not know that we 
know how he looks.’’ 

The boy replied, ‘‘Well, you will know when I 
get through drawing this picture.’’ 

It is imagination that makes real to us that 
which has been and that which is to be. It is the 
treasure-chest of the past and the lighthouse of 
the future. It is the father of fervor and the 
mother of enthusiasm. 

When a child is discouraged in his use of im- 
agination and prevented from developing in him- 
self a sense of reality, he is being robbed of the 
chief part of his spiritual inheritance. 

It is possible for every one of us to cultivate 
imagination, if we will appreciate it as the basis 
of the sense of reality, and separate it from any 
necessary imputations of falsehood and vagary, 
and understand that this picture-forming func- 
tion of consciousness is that which makes real to 
us mother, God, friends, and self. 

We can improve imagination through conscious 
effort, through looking at pictures or objects, 
through the use of maps, through the reading of 
stories, and through travel and local excursions. 

Historical stories are valuable aids in visual- 
izing and understanding history. For assistance 


126 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


in visualizing Bible history, the reader is referred 
to ‘‘Bible Story Telling,’’ by Bertha Baldwin 
Tralle. 

- It will be found helpful also, in developing 
imagination, in gaining a vivid sense of historical 
realities, to ask ourselves, ‘‘What would I have 
done or said under the circumstances?’’ 


IV. INITIATIVE 


The next thing to be said on this subject is 
that imagination is the father of initiative, of 
discovery, of invention. It is a prerequisite of 
all progress in business, and art, and literature, 
and education, and religion. 

The dreamers of the world have been the 
leaders of the world, in every age and in every 
land, and ‘‘where there is no vision, the people 
perish.’’ 

It is to those who have built the new out of the 
old to whom we are indebted for all the valued 
products and possessions of civilization. 

The recalling of a mental image, ‘‘the con- 
sciousness of an object of sensory experience with 
the additional consciousness that this object is 
not immediately present to the senses,’’ is a 
simple act of memory that is of very great value, 
but of even greater importance than this repro- 
ductive imagination is productive imagination, 
which takes these recalled mental imagés which 
constitute our materials of thought, and, by se- 


KYES THAT SEE 127 


lection or combination or changing, constructs out 
of them something that is new and that meets a 
human need. 

This constructive thinking is the highest type 
of thinking. Those who do this kind of thinking 
are the world’s dreamers; and they are, after all, 
the most practical of men, for their visions are 
the blue-prints of our material and spiritual ad- 
vances. ‘They see that which has never been, on 
land or sea; and through their vision it becomes 
the actuality which all may see. 

Every great structure of wood or stone or steel 
was first built in the head of some human being. 
Every great painting or sculpture was first cre- 
ated in a human head. Its first form was imagi- 
nation, a mental image. So with all the other 
prized possessions of humanity. 

Imagination has been the gleam that every 
pioneer has followed into every land of promise 
that ever was; and it will be the light that will 
guide other pioneers into the fairer lands of 
promise of the glorious future. 


V. FREEDOM 


Imagination, too, is the key that unlocks the 
prison door of the soul, and sets it free to tra- 
verse the unlimited spaces and to visit the unfre- 
quented places of the vast universe of human 
existence, and to create for itself still other 
universes. 


128 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


Imagination is the Aladdin’s Lamp that sum- 
mons the distant stars to pass in review before 
the earthly scientist. I heard a lecture by one 
of the world’s great astronomers, a few years 
ago, on ‘‘The Milky Way.’’ In the course of his 
lecture, the professor showed a picture of a small 
blurred spot in the Milky Way, and said: ‘‘Note 
that this spot, in this picture, appears to be a 
mere whitish mass, but, in this other picture, 
which I am now showing you, taken with a larger, 
more powerful telescope, this blur in the sky is 
broken up into numerous bright stars, each of 
which is separated from the others by immense 
distances; and it is estimated that the distance 
across this whole group of stars, which, in the 
other picture, appeared to be only a spot about 
the size of your hand, is three hundred and fifty 
‘‘light years,’’ that is, it would take a beam of 
light that long to cross it, traveling at the rate of 
nearly eight times around our earth while your 
heart is beating once.’’ 

It is with the constructive imagination that the 
scientist, in every department of human investi- 
gation, builds his theories, his working hypoth- 
eses, which are the highways of thought that lead 
out into the vast unknown. 

So is it also with the rest of us, who are not 
entitled to be called scientists. We need not be 
confined to any office, or work-room, or kitchen, 
or farm, or fifty-foot lot. 

However narrow the material confines of the 


EYES THAT SEE 129 


individual existence of any one of us, we can, at 
will, go on delightful excursions into the wide 
worlds of literature, of art, of music, of history, 
of science, of religion; and never, in a thousand 
years, see a trespass sign, if only we will compel 
ourselves to be lifelong readers, observers and 
students—and learn to control and utilize imagi- 
nation. 

If it be objected that poverty makes all this 
impossible to many human beings, then it may be 
said, on the other hand, that riches more likely 
will make it impossible, for many a money- 
grubber to-day is holding an American dollar so 
close to his eye that it shuts out from his view 
everything that is worth seeing in life. 

No, imagination cannot be bound and confined 
and imprisoned and chained by anything in all 
the universe except by the owner himself. 


VI. IDEALS 


From this discussion of freedom, it is but a 
step to a consideration of ideals. An ideal is 
any individual’s mental picture of any desir- 
able attainment or achievement. It has to do 
with what one would like to be, but is not, 
and with what he would like to do, but has not 
done. 

Ideals range all the way from a pattern or 
method of procedure in the doing of anything to 
those angels of light that lure and encourage and 


130 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


inspire in life’s darkest and most difficult mo- 
ments. 

No one can afford to estimate himself at his 
present actual value, but instead should evaluate 
himself in his potentialities. 

No one ever will build his life larger than it 
appears in his own plans and specifications. 
Every individual is the ‘‘architect of his fate,’’ 
and he should, therefore, draw his plans with 
vision and daring. 

This is not conceit, but common sense. In 
fact, it is the best of all sense. Ideals are the 
highest peaks in the mountain ranges of human 
thought. It is in idealistic thinking that im- 
agination comes into its very own in the realm 
of intellectuality. 

This work of drawing life’s plans should never 
be regarded as having been completed once for 
all, because, as the personality develops, as life 
enlarges, as vision is strengthened, as new terri- 
tory is conquered, as new heights are reached, 
there is new need and wisdom for new planning. 

Not that we are to be forever tearing up life’s 
plans, and never getting any building completed, 
but that we are to be always enlarging and ex- 
tending and beautifying. 


Vil. FAITH 


This consideration of ideals brings us face to 
face with faith. We may think of faith as the 


EYES THAT SEE 131 


solid foundation on which all the enduring struc- 
tures of life must be erected. 

The great life-builders have faith in them- 
selves, in others, in the world, in their tasks, 
in God. 

What is there that is worth building in life that 
is left to the confirmed cynic, the persistent pessi- 
mist, the carping critic, the chronic kicker? 

Every one of us will do well to inoculate him- 
self against the poisonous pessimism which so 
saturates many of our American newspapers and 
much of our current literature. 

I am thinking now of a man, as typical of a 
large number of continuous producers of words, 
whose contract has compelled him for years to 
pound off on his typewriter a daily column of 
‘“stuff’’? for a New York newspaper, whether he 
has anything to say or not, and whose chief stock 
in trade is finding fault with the best people and 
the best institutions in the world. 

He is witty, but not wise; he is clever, but not 
courteous; he is funny, but not fair; he is enter- 
taining, but not instructive. 

In fact, he claims that he does not believe in 
instruction. I have heard him in addresses 
several times; and every time, he said in his talk, 
‘“T do not believe that anybody is very much in- 
fluenced by anything he hears or reads.’’ 

I have not been able quite to determine whether 
that statement was a sincere statement of igno- 
rance or part of his pedagogic pose. 


132 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


While he was protesting that he was not trying 
to influence anybody, he was at the same time 
infiuencing his audience, and must have known 
that he was doing so. The numerous readers of 
his daily column are being influenced all the time. 
They are being poisoned by his persistent pessi- 
mism and his sonorous cynicism. 

As a matter of fact, it is impossible for any one 
of us to read after the same man for any length 
of time, or to listen to the same speaker week by 
week, without being influenced by him, even 
though we may not be conscious of it, being in- 
fluenced in the most effective way anybody 
can be influenced, namely, through indirect 
suggestion. 

Our columnist, in common with kindred spirits 
on the staffs of other newspapers, has a custom 
of dumping into his big ‘‘mid-Victorian’’ waste- 
basket everything that is not in tune with his 
cynical sonorousness. 

These literary birds of a feather that flock to- 
gether are immensely flattered when they are 
called the intelligentsia. In fact they are not 
any more intelligent, and not half so sensible, as 
some other writers who still cling to some of the 
traditions and the decencies. 

We ought to have only commendation for those 
who shatter shams and ridicule wrongs, provided 
their aim is serious and their result is con- 
structive. We should seek to tear down the bad 


EYES THAT SEE 133 


only when we are making an honest effort to 
build up the good. And a desire to build up the 
good is my only reason for here endeavoring to 
pay my respects to certain columnists, who at the 
worst have much of good in them. 


VIII. HUMOR 


Imagination is at the heart of all humor, and 
those benighted souls who have no saving sense 
of humor simply have no imagination. They 
have no eyes that see. 

They cannot see themselves. If they could, 
they would laugh. Other people certainly laugh 
at them; for the funniest people in the world, 
to other people, are those that have no sense 
of humor. 

A sense of humor depends, in part at least, on 
the ability to visualize quickly and vividly sur- 
prising and incongruous life situations. There 
are other elements that enter into humor, but 
the one essential condition of all laughter is 
imagination. 

When we laugh, we laugh at mental pictures. 
We see something that is funny. So potently 
permanent are the imaginative qualities of the 
world’s jokes that they live through many gener- 
ations; for, not only does each new generation 
laugh at them, but individuals laugh repeatedly 
at the repetition of the old jokes. 


134 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


I heard a newspaper man say recently that 
he had a card-index file of more than five thou- 
sand jokes, and he had been able to trace the 
origin of only three of them. All the rest of 
them are old. 


IX. HUMILITY 


Then there is humality. A right use of im- 
agination will enable an individual to see him- 
self ‘‘as ithers see’ him,’’ and inevitably will 
keep his head from swelling. 

He who actually sees himself will be saved 
from many disappointments and hurts. He will 
not be easily offended. He will not be thinking 
himself slighted, or overlooked, or mistreated. 
He will not be forever climbing a miff-tree. He 
could not look at himself in a miff-tree without 
laughing himself to death. 

Humility does not mean lack of self-confidence 
or a self-depreciation that expresses itself in in- 
sincere words of self-belittlement. 

When we say of any individual that he has 
humility—if we know what we are talking about 
—we mean simply that he views himself in 
proper perspective, that he sees himself in his 
true relations to God and men. 

Such humility will not keep any individual 
from undertaking big things when duty calls, or 
when honor is involved. a 


EYES THAT SEE 135 


X. SYMPATHY 


One other thing remains to be said about the 
value of imagination. It is the basis of all hu- 
man sympathy. It enables each of us to put him- 
self into the place of another. It makes it possi- 
ble for him to get another’s point of view, to see 
and feel as another sees and feels. It saves 
him from harsh judgments, and unkind words, 
and from unfair treatment of others. 

We help the needy and unfortunate, not only 
because our good judgment demands it, but when 
our sympathies are aroused, when we see our- 
selves in their places. 

It is nothing in any man’s favor that he is 
lacking in sympathy. It is sympathy that hu- 
manizes and socializes and softens life for all 
of us, and it is an element of power in leadership. 
Sympathy in an individual inspires confidence 
and trust and affection in others. 

I have sought, in the lines which follow, to 
embody this idea of sympathy in some of its 
applications. 


You SHoutp Have My Eves 


‘‘T see no genius there,’’ you say, 
Beholding that wee boy of mine, 
Absorbed and glad in childish play, 


136 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


‘‘T gee in him no spark divine.’’ 
Ah! But you should have my eyes. 


‘‘T see no sparkling beauty there,’’ 
You say of my devoted wife, 

‘‘In form or face or eyes or hair,’’ 
Appraising my dear light of life. 
Ah! But you should have my eyes. 


‘<T gee no power and might,’’ you think, 
Observing my beloved church— 

From fountains deep you do not drink, 
And purge yourself from gin and smirch. 
Ah! But you should have my eyes. 


‘‘Tts greatness I can little see,’’ 

Declare you of my native land, 

‘“Tts boasted bigness cannot be; 

There’s naught in it that’s fine or grand.’’ 
Ah! But you should have my eyes. 


And so the great wide world around, 

The world of men, and brothers, too, 
Where noblest thoughts and deeds abound, 
No visions bright can bring to you. 

Ah! But you should have my eyes. 


DISCUSSION 


1. One of the large department-stores in 
New York, in connection with an anniversary 
sale, advertised as follows: ‘‘We make truth 


EYES THAT SEE 137 


and service the basis of our advertising. Our 
advertising is written from the buyer’s or 
consumer’s point of view. It never strives 
to sell. It seeks to help you to buy. It is 
informative, not argumentative. It is cooper- 
ative, not combative.’’ 

2. A man who is spoken of as ‘‘the world’s 
greatest photo-playwright,’’ was reported, a few 
months ago, as saying: ‘‘I have always at- 
tempted to instill idealism into all my stories. 
I have studied the nature of people at first-hand, 
and I have searched always for the avenue which 
might offer them a possible outlet from the life 
that has crushed them. Reform is a tremendous 
task. Degradation is so much easier of accom- 
plishment than regeneration. I believe that the 
motion-picture, because of its universal appeal, 
might be turned to reform with remarkable 
results. ’’ 

3. Charles W. Haward, M. D., in his ‘‘Re- 
creating Human Nature,’’ has a significant chap- 
ter on the ‘‘Appalling Danger of the Press.’’ 

4. In his ‘‘Outline of Psychology,’’ Prof. 
William McDougall says: ‘‘The normal adult 
enjoys considerable power of imagination. We 
may usefully distinguish three levels of im- 
agination. The lowest is what is commonly 
called reproductive or representative imagina- 
tion. The second is constructive imagination. 
The third is creative imagination. But though 
in principle we may distinguish these forms or 


138 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


levels of imagination, in actual living they are 
commonly mingled inextricably.’’ 

_ 5. In their ‘‘Introduction to Teaching,’’ Bag- 
ley and Keith say: ‘‘We turn now to a third 
group of the liberal studies, the group that is 
most clearly represented in the school program by 
literature, but which, in a comprehensive treat- 
ment of the field, would also include the products 
of the other ‘fine arts’—music, painting, sculp- 
ture, and architecture. The essence of the fine 
arts and especially of literature lies in the fact 
that they are records, not primarily of actual 
happenings, but of imaginings. It is hardly too 
much to say, indeed, that the greatest literature 
is not a record of facts but of dreams. What 
justification (it may be asked) has so expensive 
a process as public, universal education to deal 
with anything so unreal as dreams when a sub- 
stantial world of facts lies all around in space, and 
when an almost equally substantial world of facts 
lies back of us in time? The answer to this 
question involves the recognition of a funda- 
mental truth; the truth, namely, that the human 
mind is constantly projecting itself beyond the 
world of actualities, beyond what is or has been, 
into the realm of what may be and, even more 
importantly, what should be. It is not only im- 
possible for the individual to escape this tendency 
—it is one of the privileges of life that he can look 
beyond the actual into the world that his imagina- 
tion opens to him. In the first place, it is there 


EYES THAT SEE 139 


that he is most likely to find relief from the bur- 
dens and perplexities of everyday existence, to 
‘re-create’ himself with new hopes and new 
visions. The influence of imaginative experiences 
strikes much deeper than this, however. The 
best products of literature and of the other fine 
arts are not only the means to a wholesome and 
upbuilding recreation, they are also records or 
interpretations of the most penetrating and dy- 
namic of human experiences.’’ 

6. See helpful chapters in Horne’s ‘‘Psycho- 
logical Principles of Education,’’ Colvin and 
Bagley’s ‘‘Human Behavior,’’ Kitson’s ‘‘ How to 
Use Your Mind,’’ Hollingsworth and Poffen- 
berger’s ‘‘Applied Psychology,’’ Betts’s ‘‘The 
Mind and Its Education,’’ Bennett’s ‘‘ Psychology 
and Self-development,’’ Breese’s ‘‘Psychology,’’ 
Givler’s ‘‘Psychology,’’ Pillsbury’s ‘‘Fundamen- 
tals of Psychology,’’ Platt’s ‘‘The Psychology of 
Thought and Feeling,’’ Seashore’s ‘‘ Introduction 
to Psychology,’’ Warren’s ‘‘The Elements of 
Human Psychology.”’ 


CHAPTER VII 
HABIT INVESTMENTS 


My favorite teacher in college, in his conversa- 
tion, had a way of being wholly absorbed in what 
he was saying, and of standing close to those with 
whom he was talking. 

Occasionally, when we were walking along the 
street together, in the little college town, he would 
‘talk’? me into the fence, when I was walking on 
the inside; and I would back out and get on the 
other side, and then he would talk me off the 
sidewalk into the street. 

While he was disporting himself on first one 
side and then the other of his subject, I was doing 
my best to stay on one side or the other of him. 

The explanation of this unplanned game of 
hide-and-seek, of which the professor seemed to 
be altogether unconscious, and which seemed 
never to disturb his serenity or to break his con- 
versational continuity, was that he was walking 
and talking at the same time, and that both were 
predominantly habitual. He had his mind on 
what he was thinking, and not on his talking or 
his walking. 

140 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 141 


In other words, the professor’s superintendent 
of the mental works, who lived on Cortex Hill in 
the top of his head, had trained his helpers in 
the backbone flats, or in the mid-brain, or wher- 
ever they really did live, to attend to the com- 
plexity of codrdinations involved in talking and 
walking, and had turned over this business to 
them. 

This was all right, and just as it should have 
been; except that, in this case, the superintendent 
trusted his assistants a little too far, and failed 
to exercise a precautionary supervision, especially 
in the matter of the walking. 

The professor’s ‘‘absent-mindedness’’ was not, 
strictly speaking, absent-mindedness at all. His 
mind was very much present, but it was centered 
wholly on the thought of his speaking. 


I. RATIONALIZATION 


In this little story, we see illustrated one of the 
laws of life and learning. 

By the time a human being has reached adult- 
hood, so it is estimated, about ninety-nine per 
cent of his walking and talking and eating, and 
other ‘‘behavior,’’ is habitual. It is practically 
automatic. It does itself, with but little conscious 
consideration. 

Any mental performance, when repeated, is 
easier the second time, still easier the third time, 
and so increasingly easier until it is practically 


142 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


automatic. Attention may be thus centered upon 
some new thing until it also is habitual, and be- 
comes, so to speak, another deposit in life’s bank 
account. 

Just how mental performances thus become 
established and easy, nobody knows—neither 
physiologists, nor psychologists, nor philosophers 
—but it is supposed that the explanation les 
somewhere in the nervous system, in the brain 
and the other nerve-centers, and in the nerve 
branches reaching to the various parts of the 
body. 

It is assumed that the nerve-excitations in- 
volved in any ‘‘behavior’’ so affect the connec- 
tions between the nerves involved that repetition 
of this behavior becomes increasingly easier until 
it becomes habitual. 

It is held, therefore, that the real seat of habit 
is in the ‘‘opennesses’’ of the synapses, the 
‘‘paths’’ made by repeated mental stepping. 
But this does not seem to mean much to us, even if 
it should be proved to be true, instead of remain- 
ing, as it is now, a scientific guess. 

These ‘‘opennesses’’ mean all the less to us 
when the physiologists explain to us that they 
are not really opennesses at all, since nerve- 
excitation is thought of as involving a series of 
explosions, or burnings. 

Fortunately, however, we do not need to have 
a satisfactory explanation of it in order to know 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 143 


that repetition tends to fixation in behavior, and 
to economic utilization. 

Edward K. Strong, Jr., in his ‘‘ Introductory 
Psychology for Teachers,’’ says, ‘‘Habit or mem- 
ory is to-day conceived of as due primarily to the 
chemical change in the synapse whereby the re- 
sistance is lowered, thus permitting the nervous 
current to flow in this direction rather than in 
some other direction.’’ 


II. FOCALIZATION 


If we accept the fact that repetition tends to 
fixation, it follows that it is important to get a 
right start in habit formation, to control the be- 
havior in its beginning. 

There is an old saying to the effect that ‘‘the 
way to teach a boy to swim is to pitch him into 
the water,’’ but nothing could be farther from 
the truth. That is the way either to drown him 
or to make a poor swimmer of him. 

That is the way I was taught to swim, and that 
is why I am not a good swimmer. There was no- 
body to teach me the right method, at the be- 
ginning, to put me on the right track, to help me 
to get the hang of it, to give me the cue, to help 
me to ‘‘focalize.”’ 

At a ‘‘high school meet,’’ in a university 
swimming-pool, some time ago, I was amazed at 
the ease and rapidity with which those high school 


144 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


boys swam, and I realized as never before what I 
had missed in not being taught to swim when I 
was a boy, instead of being ‘‘pitched in.’’ 

The way to teach a boy to swim is to ‘‘lead’’ 
him in. Lead him into water that is not too deep. 
Explain to him about the stroke, showing him the 
how and the why of it. Help him to focalize 
properly, to get a mental picture of the desirable 
coordinations of mind and muscle. Then hold 
him while he tries it, being careful that he starts 
right. Then watch him as he tries, being sure 
that he properly focalizes, When, through prac- 
tice, he masters the stroke, he has learned how to 
swim. After he has practised until the superin- 
tendent of the mental works can turn over the 
bulk of the swimming business to his assistants, 
this boy will not need to be ‘‘pitched in.’’ He will 
go in every time he gets a chance, and will ex- 
perience the lifelong joys and benefits of good 
swimming. 

Herein lies the importance of good teachers, 
who get their students started in the right way. 
Think of the musicians who have been spoiled in 
the making, because they got a bad start! Think 
of the lifelong difficulties of most of us with our 
‘‘mother tongue’’ because we were not started in 
the right ways by teachers in the home and in the 
school! 

If you want to learn anything, get a good 
teacher. A poor teacher is dear at thirty cents, 
and a good teacher is cheap at any price. 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 145 


Ill. SELECTION 


Next to the importance of rationalization and 
focalization in habit formation, is selection—to be- 
gin on the right habits when we do begin. 

When I first began to write, in my boyhood, I 
learned to write with my letters leaning forward, 
as if they were hurrying to get somewhere. Then, 
later, in another school, I learned to write with my 
letters leaning backward, as if they refused to go 
anywhere. In a third school, I learned to write 
with my letters standing straight up and down, as 
if they were put there to stay. Now I write all 
three ways at the same time. 

This is an illustration of the curiosities of cur- 
riculum construction. The problems of curricu- 
lum making for our schools are many and com- 
plex, and the difficulties involved are stupendous. 
It is of the highest importance that the wisest of 
men and women, with the most thorough training 
in the psychology and the pedagogy of education, 
shall devote their best thought and effort to the 
selection of suitable educational materials for use 
in our schools, in order that every student, at 
every stage of his development, may be introduced 
to those subjects which will form the basis of de- 
sirable habit formation. 

It is of very great importance that every human 
being should choose a vocation early in life, and 
begin to form habits in connection therewith that 


146 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


will constitute assets rather than liabilities. 
Girls, as well as boys, should be encouraged to fix 
on some career besides marriage, not only with a 
view to economic independence, but chiefly for the 
sake of fullness of life in the development and en- 
richment of personality. 

Within the range of preparation for a vocation, 
there is large room for selection in the choice of 
the subjects for study that will be most useful in 
habit formation. If, for instance, the individual 
is preparing himself for a secretaryship, and ex- 
pects to learn shorthand, it is important to fix, at 
the beginning, on a standard recognized system, 
and not to choose one that is advertised as being 
easily and quickly learned. Young people should 
avoid the short, easy courses; and choose those 
that will yield the best results in the long run, no 
matter how difficult. The very choosing of the 
difficult will in itself be an enriching of personality 
and a strengthening of the character. | 

Happy indeed are those who were started in 
the right ways, early in life, by wise parents and 
teachers! How fortunate are those who learned 
the mother tongue in its purest and most beautiful 
forms, right at the beginning, inthe home! They 
learned to pronounce correctly and to speak with 
distinctness, and with suitable emphasis and mod- 
ulation, in pleasing tones. On the other hand, 
there are those who must, all their lives, be handi- 
capped by the bad habits of speech that were 
acquired in childhood. 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 147 


IV. COORDINATION 


There is one fact about habit formation that 
ought to be encouraging to all of us, and that is 
that any good habit formed in early life, any habit 
formed as a result of a good selection, though it 
may not have been the best selection, is likely to 
prove of use in later life, by reason of the possibil- 
ity of coérdination, or of transfer. 

This may come about in two ways. First, a 
specific habit may be transferred from the situa- 
tion in which it has been formed to another situa- 
tion through ‘‘identical elements,’’ where two 
situations have many significant points of iden- 
tity ; as habits of promptness, politeness, courtesy, 
cordiality, industry, and the like. If a boy ac- 
quires habits of promptness in the home, he is 
likely to be prompt in school, and later in business. 

In the second place, there may be transfer of 
habits through ‘‘ideals of procedure,’’ that is, 
through the conscious selection from a stock of 
habits a new combination of responses that will 
enable us to meet the new situation effectively. 

It is a mistake to think that each human being 
was ‘‘cut out’’ for only one life job, and that he 
would be a failure in any other. One of our psy- 
chologists has been reported as saying recently 
that probably about eighty per cent of any one’s 
abilities could be made effective in some calling 
other than the one in which he may now be en- 
gaged. 


148 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


No one need hesitate, consequently, to change 
his vocation if he feels that he has not yet found 
his true place in life. There are numerous ex- 
amples of men who have not ‘‘found themselves”’ 
until fifty or later, and then have been conspic- 


uously successful in the new calling. 


V. ACTION 


No one can acquire good habits simply by wish- 
ing for them, or dreaming about them, or talking 
of them. Habit formation involves action; that 
is, activity directed and controlled. 

It is impossible to learn to pronounce correctly 
the words of one’s mother tongue simply by read- 
ing the dictionary. Every human being with any 
ambition to be a leader in the world should own an 
unabridged dictionary, even if he has to go with- 
out an overcoat in order to buy it. But it is not 
enough to own and use a good dictionary. It is 
necessary actually to pronounce the words until 
the correct pronunciations become habitual, and 
are cared for by those assistants in the nerve- 
centers. 

I shall never cease to be grateful that, during 
my four years in college, I spent an average of 
thirty minutes a day with a good unabridged 
dictionary, pronouncing aloud over and over again 
the new words I came across in reading and in 
listening to lectures. 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 149 


VI. REPETITION 


It is necessary, in this connection, to emphasize 
the importance of repetition. It is essential, in 
the very beginning of the formation of any new 
habit, to repeat attentively the desired combina- 
tion of movements that will constitute the habit. 
This should be done very carefully and exactly 
and correctly at first, again and again, until the 
movements become practically automatic. 

When I was learning Isaac Pitman shorthand, 
I covered thousands of pages with carefully writ- 
ten outlines, according to the directions of the 
teacher and the books. I would write side by side 
two similar consonantal strokes, one light and the 
other heavy, being very careful to get them 
properly sloped and exactly the right length, while 
at the same time writing as rapidly as possible, 
covering page after page with these strokes, 
uttering the appropriate sound and writing its 
sign, over and over again, hour after hour, day 
after day. 

This was my method with all the consonants and 
vowels and diphthongs, and with all the contrac- 
tions and the word-signs, until, through attentive, 
careful, diligent repetition, I got shorthand into 
my nervous system. 

I acquired a complexity of useful shorthand 
habits that combined to constitute skill in short- 


150 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


hand; and now, as I write this book, I can give 
practically my whole attention to what I am say- 
ing and the way I am saying it, while my well- 
trained assistants in my nerve-centers get it all 
down correctly in shorthand. They do their work 
so well, in fact, that I could pick up the shorthand 
pages twenty years from now, and read every 
word that is written. 

I write shorthand more naturally, more easily, 
and more correctly than I write longhand, because 
I have bought an adequate supply of good short- 
hand habits at the price of suitable rationalization, 
focalization, selection, coordination, action, and 
repetition. 

In a day or two my wife will pick up these 
shorthand pages I am now writing, and will put 
the shorthand notes into legible, neatly written 
typed pages; for she, too, acquired a valuable col- 
lection of good shorthand habits, very similar to 
my own, in the days of our courtship, when I gave 
her lessons. 


VII. CONTINUATION 


Another fact that needs to be considered here is 
what may be called the law of continuation, 
namely, that no exceptions should be allowed to 
occur in repetition, until the habit has been estab- 
lished. 

It is not mere repetition that counts, but atten- 
tive, sustained, careful, exact repetition. To 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 151 


make one mistake in repetition is, as William 
James said, like dropping a ball of yarn that is 
being wound—the habit-former must begin all 
over again. 

Carelessness, therefore, is the curse of habit 
formation. It is necessary to practise giving 
complete, whole-hearted attention and to achieve 
undistracted concentration. 

This will apply to the learning of shorthand or 
piano playing or singing or pronunciation or 
painting or tennis or bowling, or ariything else 
that one expects really to learn. 

Always, in the acquiring of any habit, patient 
practice is a prime prerequisite. 


Vill. SUBSTITUTION 


Another word that must claim our attention, in 
this discussion of habit formation, is substitution. 
Here is encouragement for those who have formed 
many bad habits in early life. 

Any intelligent adult may get rid of his bad 
habits, to a considerable extent at least, through 
substitution of good habits. He cannot conquer 
his bad habits by direct attack, but he can conquer 
them by indirection, through substitution. He 
ean quit thinking about his bad habits, quit worry- 
ing about them, refusing to surrender to them, and 
begin deliberately to put good habits in their 
places. 

Suppose, for instance, any one has been mis- 


152 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


pronouncing the word ‘‘adult’’ by placing the ac- 
cent on the first syllable, instead of on the second, 
where it belongs. Then let him look up this word 
in the dictionaries, and find that there is no rep- 
utable lexicographical authority for the accent on 
the first syllable; and then let him pronounce the 
word aloud correctly, with the accent on the sec- 
ond syllable, over and over again, say fifty times. 
Let him do this again in a few days, and repeat 
it still later; and soon, without his thinking about 
it at all, he will find that the substitution has dis- 
placed the old bad habit of pronunciation, and 
that he can trust his assistants in the nerve- 
centers to see to it that this word is pronounced 
correctly. 

In case he has been mispronouncing the name 
of the book out of which we get our standards of 
pronunciation, placing the accent upon the third 
syllable; then let him pronounce the word cor- 
rectly a hundred times, attentively, thoughtfully, — 
correctly, giving it only one accent, and that on 
the first syllable; and he will be able to say ‘‘dic- 
tionary’’ correctly, without worrying about his 
old wrong pronunciation. 

When we adults are dealing with children, we 
should never scold them for their bad habits, call- 
ing their attention to them, for we thus only 
strengthen these habits. We should rather inter- 
est them in the development of good habits that 
will displace the old by substitution. 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 153 


IX. CONATION 


Another important factor in all habit forma- 
tion is will-power. A willingness to pay the 
price and the determination patiently to prac- 
tise are essential to success in acquiring any use- 
ful habit. 

Too much emphasis has been placed upon the 
preadolescent period as the habit-fixing time of 
life. This is true. But it is also true that any 
time in life is a habit-fixing time. 

_ It has been said that most of the fundamental 

habits of life are formed before twenty-five years 
of age. This probably is true of most individuals, 
as a general statement, but it does not follow 
that it is impossible to acquire important habits 
in later life. Many a man has mastered a new 
language after fifty years of age. Some men have 
not ‘‘found themselves’’ until they were past fifty 
years of age, and they have then acquired a com- 
plex series of habits that constitute the skills in- 
volved in the new calling. 

These statements are made for the purpose of 
encouraging adults, and must not be allowed in 
any way to obscure the primary importance of 
early environment and education. The younger 
human beings are, the more ‘‘plastic’’ they are; 
and the larger the number of good habits acquired 
in early life, the better it will be. 


154 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


X. MOTIVATION 


The determination that is required for persist- 
ence in repetition for the establishing of any de- 
sirable habit must be deliberately. developed 
through a proper motivation. 

The motivation of an absorbing life-ambition 
is of the highest importance. To keep your eyes 
on yourself, not as you are now, but as you see 
yourself in the years ahead, when you have come 
into your own in your chosen vocation—this will 
keep you on the job of habit-fixing through prac- 
tice, practice, practice. 

A purposeless drifter in life will never 
doggedly drive himself through the dragging 
drudgery to the happy heights of worth-while 
accomplishment. It follows, then, that the thing 
that counts in any life is not what the individual 
is now, but what he plans to be, tries to be, deter- 
mines to be, expects to be. A worthy ambition 
is the driving-wheel of the machinery of habit- 
formation. It is highly important, therefore, to 
get these driving-wheels, through association 
with those who have them, and through the read- 
ing of books in which they move strongly. Drive 
yourself away from life’s drifters if you would 
get to any place that is worth getting to. 

A significant aid in motivation, and the anti- 
dote for discouragement, is appreciation of ‘‘the 
practice curve and its plateaus’’ in the forming 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 155 


of a new habit. The facts involved seem to be 
about as follows: The rate of learning is rapid 
at first, then slower, and then stationary, and 
then more rapid again, with a recurrent slowing 
down. 

In all habit-formation practice, there comes a 
time of apparent and inevitable slowing down in 
progress, and then a dead stop. These no- 
progress periods are called plateaus; and these 
are critical. They are exceedingly dangerous. 
Many human beings fall off these plateaus and 
break their necks, and never get anywhere they 
want to go. 

The explanation of these plateaus of learning 
may not be altogether satisfactory, but there can 
be no doubt that they exist, and that it is impor- 
tant to get off them by going forward instead of 
by falling off. 

These plateaus may be due to a tendency on the 
part of the individual to relaxation in determina- 
tion and interest and attention and effort. He 
gets tired practising. Or it may be a device of 
nature for fixing the basic nerve connections—a 
slowing down, so to speak, for a fresh and better 
start. 

Anyway, the fact that they exist is established, 
and the conclusion is clear: Provide yourself 
with motives for persistence; and, when you come 
to the plateau, just keep going forward as if you 
were making progress, as indeed you are; for, 
though you seem to be standing still or only mark- 


156 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


ing time, you are in reality being carried forward 
and upward all the while, on the escalator of 
repetition, toward your desired destination. 

This encouraging truth may be illustrated by 
going back to my shorthand. When I was learn- 
ing shorthand, I reached the stage where I had 
acquired the elements of the system, and could 
write at the rate of about one hundred and twenty- 
five words a minute, and then transcribe my notes 
on the typewriter; but I could not get beyond that 
speed. I was talking to myself in some such way 
as this: ‘‘Is this my real measure? Am I going 
to stop with being a mediocre stenographer? If 
I am going to be a court reporter, as a stepping- 
stone to becoming a lawyer, I shall need to write 
two hundred words a minute at the least. Per- 
haps it is in me, after all. Anyway, I am going 
to keep trying, and prove to myself conclusively 
that I either can or cannot be a real stenog- 
rapher.’’ 

So I doggedly determined, and persisted in 
practice, reporting sermons and political ad- 
dresses, writing what I could of court proceedings, 
having members of the family read to me from 
practice books, reading the Bible and other books 
printed in shorthand, thinking shorthand, and 
dreaming shorthand, and practising shorthand; 
until I discovered, all at once, to my amazement, 
that I could write new matter, and transcribe cor- 
rectly my notes, at the rate of more than two hun- 
dred words a minute. I had not quit, I had 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 157 


patiently persisted, I had paid the price, I had 
kept going forward; and my escalator had brought 
me to the pictured place of proficiency. There 
have been other destinations since; and I have 
reached them in the same way, by being careful 
to avoid the dangers of the dead levels. 

Your destination may be musical, or artistic, 
or oratorical, or scientific, or financial, or any one 
of a thousand other goals; and you can reach it, 
af you will refuse to allow yourself to stay on the 
dead levels. 


DISCUSSION 


1. In his ‘‘Outline of Psychology,’’ William 
McDougall says: ‘‘Men do undoubtedly form 
bodily habits of the nervous kind. We learn by 
practice, by purposive effort oft repeated, to com- 
bine our more elementary movements in new 
ways, gradually achieving the new combination 
more easily, with less effort; until it is, as we say, 
‘secondarily automatic,’ and requires for its pro- 
duction no effort, but merely the intention or will 
to produce it. By far the greater number of the 
new combinations of movements that we thus ac- 
quire are made in the service of special purposes, 
and are useful to us as facilitating the achieve- 
ment of such purposes; we call them, therefore, 
skilled movements, and speak of the acquisition 
of skill. Now, in acquiring a skilled movement 
(or secondarily automatic combination of move- 


158 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


ments) we undoubtedly build up in the nervous 
system a new motor mechanism similar to those 
motor mechanisms with which we are innately 
endowed.”’ 

2. In their ‘‘Psychology of Childhood,’’ Nors- 
worthy and Whitley say: ‘‘If this point of view 
is correct and imitation is largely habit, then the 
educator has a much greater control over it; for 
it must be governed by the same laws which con- 
trol learning in general, the laws of exercise and 
effect. The child imitates his fellows in all sorts 
of ways because satisfaction has been derived 
from such action, not because he cannot help it. 
For the same reason the youth apes his elders and 
one nation imitates another. ‘Imitation is the 
prime condition of all collective mental life.’ 
Custom and tradition in all fields are but an ex- 
pression of its power. Because it has been found 
that the imitation of the thing in vogue, no matter 
what it may be, brings public approval, and the 
violation of the prevailing custom brings scorn 
and criticism, man does and thinks as others of 
his group do and think. This tendency may be 
seen in politics, education, and religion, as well as 
in the trivial matters of dress. Young» men vote 
as their fathers do, and show the attitude towards 
religious matters which is that of their family 
and their community. The dangers of such habits 
are evident; mechanically used, they make for 
stagnation instead of progress, for dependence 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 159 


and blind following instead of independence and 
originality. Despite these very grave dangers, 
the fact of imitation is of inestimable value to the 
human race. By means of habits of imitation the 
child can very much abridge the tiresome method 
of learning by trial and error, and can learn what 
his father knows in very much shorter time.”’ 

3. In their ‘‘Introduction to Teaching,’’ Bagley 
and Keith say: ‘‘A specific habit is an auto- 
matic or mechanical association between a stim- 
ulus and a response that has been acquired 
through experience. The difference between 
habits and skills is chiefly the difference between 
relative simplicity and relative complexity. 
Skills may be thought of as more or less elaborate 
combinations of specific habits. In learning to 
drive an automobile, for example, one must con- 
sciously master a large number of separate move- 
ments. Hach of these may be considered as a 
specific habit. Some are very simple and easily 
learned, such as pressing the foot on the brake; 
others are more difficult, such as passing from 
‘low’ through ‘intermediate’ to ‘high.’ Most 
persons who learn this art undergo a period of 
distinct discomfort. They must make each move- 
ment consciously and carefully, and after the spe- 
cific movements have been mastered, they must 
continue the period of conscious direction while 
the simple or ‘lower-order’ habits are being com- 
bined into complex or ‘higher-order’ habits. 


160 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


Gradually, however, the connections become fixed ; 
the whole chain of adjustments is completely 
mechanized; the ‘skill’ has been aequired.”’ 

4, William McDougall, in his ‘‘Introduction to 
Social Psychology,’’ discusses the effect of ma- 
turity upon learning. He says: ‘‘No adequate 
experiments are on hand upon humans which will 
enable us to show quantitatively the differences 
in the speed and accuracy of the acquisition of 
any good act of skill among a young adult of 
twenty-one, a man of forty, and a man of sixty- 
five. In practical life there are a number of 
taboos, laws and customs relating to age: for 
example, a man cannot vote until the age of 
twenty-one is reached. At forty a man is ex- 
pected to have shown all the originality that is 
in him and to have accomplished his major piece 
of work; he is supposed to be content at that age 
with the habit acquisitions at his command. 
Again, at from sixty to sixty-five a man’s useful- 
ness is supposed to undergo a sharp decline, he 
is supposed at that age to retire from his uni- 
versity, business and professional duties, to ac- 
cept a pension and to live thereafter a quiet and 
retired life. There is hardly any justification, 
experimental in character, for these distinctions.”’ 

5. President Nicholas Murray Butler, in a re- 
cent interview with a newspaper reporter, said: 
‘‘We stop education too soon and too suddenly. 
In every civilization you will find men and women 
who go on learning and growing as personalities 


HABIT INVESTMENTS 161 


until they die. You have Charles W. Eliot and 
Chauncey M. Depew, both men ninety-one years 
old, and both of them still absorbing new ideas. 
So was it with Gladstone and John Morley. With 
such exceptional men, education never ceases.’’ 

6. For helpful chapters, see Colvin and Bag- 
ley’s ‘‘Human Behavior,’’ Betts’s ‘‘The Mind and 
Its Edueation,’’ Saxby’s ‘‘Education of Be- 
havior,’’ Hollingsworth and Poffenberger’s ‘‘ Ap- 
plied Psychology,’’ Paton’s ‘‘Human Behavior,’’ 
Bennett’s ‘‘Psychology and Self-Development,’’ 
Dresser’s ‘‘Psychology in Theory and Applica- 
tion,’’ Dunlap’s ‘‘Elements of Scientific Psychol- 
ogy,’’ ‘Givler’s ‘‘Psychology,’’ Hunt’s ‘‘Self- 
Training,’’ Hunter’s ‘‘General Psychology,’’ 
Marshall’s ‘‘Mind and Conduct,’’ Platt’s ‘‘The 
Psychology of Thought and Feeling,’’ Seashore’s 
‘‘Introduction to Psychology,’’ Wallas’s ‘‘The 
Great Society,’? Woodworth’s ‘‘Psychology, a 
Study of Mental Life.’’ 


CHAPTER VIII 
CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 


The most powerful argument in the world is, 
‘Dad did, therefore I do.’’ This is the argument 
of custom, which is no argument at all. 

A social psychologist defines custom as ‘‘the 
non-rational copying of the ways of thinking and 
doing of human beings who have lived before 
our time.’’ 

Next to custom, in its influence, is convention- 
ality, which is ‘‘a psychic plane resulting from the 
deliberate, non-competitive, non-rational imita- 
tion of contemporaries. ”’ 

Custom is down imitation and conventionality 
is cross imitation. Both are essentially the same. 
The argument of the one is, popularly stated, 
‘‘Dad did, therefore I do,’’ and that of the other 
is ‘‘Hiverybody does, therefore I do.’’ 

Both custom and conventionality have their 
uses. Both are good in themselves; but their 
abuses constitute the greatest stumbling-block in 
the way of human progress. Both tend to sta- 
bilize human society, and in that respect they are 
good; but, when they become too strong, the tend- 


ency is toward stagnation and fixation. 
162 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 163 


The wise leader will study the psychology of 
custom and conventionality. He will appreciate 
their uses and guard against their abuses. He 
will recognize their power, both in himself and 
in others. He will understand why leadership is 
difficult, and thus be saved from discouragement 
when others are slow to follow his leadership. 
He will know that custom and conventionality are 
strong, but that reason is stronger. He will learn 
how to break these bonds that bind himself and 
others, and will become an effective factor in 
human progress. 

Let us now carefully examine this irrational 
imitation, custom or conventionality, to see why 
it has become so powerful and to note its effects 
where it is strongest. 


I. WHY CUSTOM IS POWERFUL 


There are many reasons why custom has such 
a strong grip on the human race; and some of 
these are here indicated and analyzed. 


1. Childish Imitation 


In childhood, a large part of learning was ac- 
complished through doing as older people did, act- 
ing as others acted, behaving as others behaved. 

This childish imitation was a good thing, if it 
was not overdone and the model was good; for it 
enabled us very early to adjust ourselves to our 


164 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


environment, to get along with other human 
beings. 

Imitation becomes bad only when it is abused, 
when it takes the place of more constructive think- 
ing. As a child grows older, he should learn to 
act less and less imitatively, and more and more 
independently. 

In other words, a human being should not re- 
main always an infant, but should develop into a 
being whose conduct is controlled chiefly by his 
own reasoning, and only secondarily by that of 
others. The more intelligent he becomes, the bet- 
ter educated he is, the less should be the power of 
custom in his life. 


2. Racial Fear 


Every human being is naturally afraid of any- 
thing new. This fear of the new, we are told, has 
been inherited from man’s early ancestors, to 
whom any new face was the face of an enemy, 
any new place was a place where lurked a raven- 
ous beast, any new thing was a dangerous thing. 

It is no longer true, of course, that everything 
new is dangerous; but most human beings act as 
if it still were true. They stay in the old places 
where it seems safe. They hesitate to venture out 
into the new places even in thought, for fear of 
criticism, or inconvenience, or failure, or bank- 
ruptcy. 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 165 


3. Social Heredity 


The numerous imitations of childhood are de- 
veloped into habits that become automatic con- 
trols in conduct—habits of walking, of talking, of 
eating, of playing, of working, of reading, of 
studying, of imitating. 

‘A child is more than one-third educated 
before he ever enters any school,’’ declares 
one of our psychologists. And another goes so 
far as to say, ‘‘By the time a child is three 
years old, his personality is more than half de- 
veloped.’’ 

It must be the function of reason, in the life of 
any growing, aspiring human being, to break up 
bad habits by building up and substituting good 
ones. 


4. Mental Laziness 


No one is born lazy, but he may soon imitate 
laziness, so that it will seem easier to him to let 
others do his thinking for him than to do it him- 
self. He becomes unwilling to put forth the per- 
sonal effort that is involved in overcoming his 
mental inertia. 

The average adult has been so poorly trained 
in the method and practice of thinking, and has 
had so little experience in constructive thinking, 
that any attempt to use his head seems to bring 


166 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


on a headache, with the result that he resorts to 
the customary pain-killer, imitation. 


5. Personal Conceit 


Each human being tends to assume that the 
ways of thinking and doing that have been handed 
down to him by his predecessors must be right; 
and he feels that it is a reflection upon his family 
and himself to admit that these ways may be 
wrong or that other ways may be better. 

His personal and family conceit make it exceed- 
ingly difficult for him to admit that he can be 
improved, in any way, especially if he ‘‘went to 
school once.’’ Added to his family conceit, there 
is now a school conceit. The school may have 
been dominated largely by custom, without a 
single prophet in it; but whatever his school 
taught him must be right because it is his school. 

This characteristic of human nature is in itself 
good, for it is at the basis of all self-respect and 
self-reliance. But a properly educated individ- 
ual never allows himself to be so bound by custom 
that he cannot recognize defects in himself and 
his family and his school and his business, and 
make an honest effort to remedy these defects 
through the exercise of intelligence. 


6. Economic Pressure 


Money is the child of custom, and dwells in the 
land of mediocrity. It delights in the old, the 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 167 


established, the fixed, the recognized, and is mor- 
tally afraid of anything that is new. Its timidity 
is exceeded only by its stupidity. 

Endowments and foundations and institutions 
are the strongholds of custom and the despair of 
reason. This is true for the most part even of 
school endowments. The situation is saved in 
some degree by the fact that there are a few 
endowments for the promotion of research and 
investigation and surveys and progress; but the 
effect of the majority of school endowments is to 
perpetuate old ways of thinking and doing. 

This in part accounts for the fact that only 
about one in ten of our college and university 
teachers is doing any real constructive thinking. 
But this heroic minority, who have been able to 
break the shackles of custom, constitute the hope 
of the world, the vanguard of civilization. 

It is unfortunate that, in this great industrial 
America of ours, when a wealthy man gives away 
money, he usually gives it, with the best intentions 
in the world, for the propagation of some idea he 
acquired when he was a boy. He has been too 
busy making money, in his maturer years, to get 
many new ideas. 

It is here gratefully acknowledged that some 
foundations are characterized by large and far- 
seeing wisdom, and that some endowments do dis- 
tinctly make for human advancement. It is true 
also that new ideas occasionally are developed 
and utilized in industry, and that some of these 


168 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


new ideas actually do make money; but it is true 
nevertheless that economic pressure is a factor 
in the over-strengthening of the power of custom 
in human affairs. 


7. Unreasonable Prejudice 


Many of our prejudices are the closed cases in 
life’s courts, in which there were convictions on 
insufficient evidence. 

Early in life, we acquired many prejudices that 
have persisted until now. That is, we had de- 
veloped in us fixed ways of thinking about certain 
things, with strong favorable or unfavorable feel- 
ings; and these prejudices, or attitudes, have re- 
mained practically unchanged throughout the 
years, because we have regarded the questions in- 
volved as closed, and have not subjected them to 
any constructive thinking. 

Probably most of our prejudices are as baseless 
as those of the old maid who hated all men because 
one man had deceived her. The Protestant is 
prejudiced against the Catholics, and most of his 
prejudices likely are without foundation or are 
wrongly founded. So with Catholic prejudices 
against the Protestants. So with the prejudices 
that the non-Catholic churches hold with reference 
to one another. Many Southerners, in America, 
apparently are unable properly to appreciate 
those who live in the North, because of prejudices 
acquired in childhood and youth; and the North- 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 169 


erners are even less able properly to appreciate 
those who live in the South. 


8. Human Meanness 


I suspect that we shall have to admit that our 
refusal to face the facts and admit the light some- 
times is due to plain, ordinary, every-day human 
meanness of the evergreen variety. 

We are loath to admit that we were mistaken, 
that we were wrong, that we were inferior to 
others, that we were ignorant, that we were 
culpable. 


9. Primitive Superstition 


We are told that our remote ancestors feared 
that they might anger their gods if they strayed 
from trodden paths, or that they might provoke 
the spirits of their ancestors to haunt them if they 
departed from family traditions. 

Only those of us who have been a little more 
fortunate in our training and experience than 
some others can believe that we are closest to God 
when we are courageously facing life’s problems 
in the light of the best of human experience, and 
seeking to solve them in harmony with God’s will 
and in the interests of our fellow human beings, 
and can believe that at the same time we are thus 
paying the highest possible tribute to our an- 
cestors, who made it possible for us to be here and 


170 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


to demonstrate our mental superiority over the 
wild beasts of the woods. 

The best of our fathers, fortunately for us, did 
not do exactly as their fathers did before them. 
Instead, they faced their own life problems for 
themselves, sometimes of necessity and sometimes 
from choice, and did some constructive thinking. 
They were the leaders of their day. They were 
in the vanguard of advancing civilization. They 
were the ones to whom we have erected monu- 
ments and whose biographies we read with inter- 
est and inspiration. 

The others were those who marched with the 
masses of customary mediocrity that left no traces 
of the aimless wanderings of their earthly ex- 
istence. 


10. Advancing Age 


Now we have come to exceedingly thin ice, and 
we must proceed with extreme carefulness. 

Except in the case of those rare individuals who 
continue to be young and to learn at any age, the 
older human beings are, the more are they dom- 
inated and controlled by custom—and the more 
reluctantly do they admit it. 

This need not be so, necessarily, as the excep- 
tions prove; but we are forced to admit that it is 
generally true, so backward and undeveloped and 
uncivilized are we, particularly in the spiritual 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 171 


things of life, despite our spectacular material 
advances. 

It is sadly true that adults too often only think 
they think when they think they think. Let me 
say this in verse. 


Tuey Toink Tuey THInK 


They only think they think who think 
The fathers’ thinking always right, 
And for this thinking think to fight. 


They only think they think who think 
That dogmas made in ages past 
Must always and forever last. 


They only think they think who think 
You ’re ‘‘crank’’ and fool and heretic 
When flaws in musty creeds you pick. 


They only think they think who think 
All plans of years and years ago 
Upon us now can good bestow. 


They only think they think who think 
That pious phrase and platitude 
Are cause for praise and gratitude. 


They only think they think who think 
That abstract truth, afloat in air, 
Will save from weakness and despair. 


172 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


They only think they think who think 
That thinking in itself, alone, 
Can for defects in life atone. 


II. WHERE CUSTOM IS STRONGEST 


It may be helpful to note the effects of custom 
in some selected locations of human thought and 
endeavor. 


1. Conservatism 


It has been supposed that conservatism is good 
form, and proper, and suitable, and desirable. 
We are asked to believe that this is true because 
the conservatives say so. 

It is exceedingly interesting to note how the 
radicals of one generation become the conserv- 
atives of the next generation, and to observe how 
extraordinarily conservative, in some things, are 
the most radical of the radicals. 

Any intelligent human being who has learned 
to think constructively at all has observed that not 
every one is ‘‘radical’’ who is not conservative. 
He has observed that the individual who is not 
conservative may hate the radical just as heartily 
as the conservative hates him, but more intel- 
ligently and effectively. 

This thoughtful observer notes that it is con- 
servatism that is responsible for the radicals, and 
that enables them to flourish. He sees that those 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 173 


who are not conservatives are the ones who are 
doing the constructive thinking of the world, and 
who are knocking the very platforms from under 
the ‘‘reds’’ and ‘‘bolsheviki’’ in politics, and the 
‘“radicals’’ in religion. 

The cure for radicalism is not conservatism, 
which is rather its cause and occasion and support 
and encouragement. The conservatives shut their 
eyes to the actual problems of the present life, 
and the radicals see nothing else. 

The actual solution of the world’s problems 
always has been left to the constructive thinkers, 
who were neither conservatives nor radicals. 
The cure for both conservatism and radicalism, 
therefore, 18 progressivism. 


2. Labor 


It has been supposed that manual labor is de- 
grading, and so it has come about that we classify 
human beings according to their occupations, in- 
stead of according to their characters. 

The masses of the people classify one another 
as farmers, day-laborers, factory hands, venders, 
carpenters, bricklayers, clerks, stenographers, 
salesmen, artists, singers, lawyers, physicians, 
teachers, preachers, financiers, and so on, and 
judge them according to their callings—the 
cleaner the hands, the higher the grading. 

As a matter of fact, we can no more classify 
human beings properly according to their voca- 


174 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


tions than we could classify a rolling rubber ball 
as a stone because it happened to stop near a 
stone. 

Manual labor is just as dignified and ennobling 
as any other labor if it is rightly performed. 
United States Senator Arthur Capper calls atten- 
tion to what he considers a serious menace to 
American welfare, namely, the fact that ‘‘we are 
educating ninety per cent of our youth to be 
white-collar workers, but have white-collar jobs 
for only ten per cent.’’ 

The only kind of labor that is disgraceful in 
itself is no-labor. Idleness is the great curse of 
the world. An idler may be good for nothing, but 
he never can be good. All idlers, both poor and 
rich, ought to be compelled by society to face the 
alternatives of work or starvation. 


3. Money 


It has been thought by many people that money 
is a measure of success, whereas, as a matter of 
fact, it frequently is a mark of failure and a badge 
of disgrace. 

Worth of character and material wealth may be 
found together, and sometimes are; but the rule 
is that they are not found together. An income 
tax list is not by any means an index to the best 
people of a community. 

Money success is only one kind of success, and 
not in any respect the most important kind. 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 175 


There is such a thing, of course, as service to 
humanity through money. All honor to those who 
give large sums of money for welfare purposes. 
It is heartening to note, in one issue of a daily 
newspaper, the announcement of gifts by two men 
of wealth to the amount of more than a hundred 
million dollars to education, and to remember that 
one man alone has given more than five hundred 
million dollars to education in this country. 

It is noticeable, however, that these money- 
givers constitute a very small minority of the 
money-makers, and, moreover, that these few are 
the ones who have morals as well as money, and 
who give themselves with their money. The 
giving of money is a poor substitute for the giving 
of self with intelligence and sincerity and sympa- 
thy and brotherliness. 


4. Cost 


Many individuals think that the more a thing 
costs, the more it is worth; but this not generally 
true at all. 

A dressmaker, in New York, moved into a more 
fashionable location, doubled her prices for the 
same goods, and got rich. She sold to those who 
had more dollars than sense. She made money 
out of customers who gave her their custom be- 
cause they were controlled more by custom than 
by common sense. 

There are some costly things that have no real 


176 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


value to some of us, or at least very little. Cost 
is not a reliable measure of value, even in material 
things. And all of us will agree that you cannot 
put price-tags at all upon the essential values of 
life, such as sunshine and sunsets and friendship 
and love and faith and hope and vision and ap- 
preciation and gratitude and courage and con- 
sclence and opportunity. 


5. Women 


It has been assumed that women are inferior to 
men, even in the thinking of the women them- 
selves. 

This notion grew out of the patriarchal attitude 
toward woman as a chattel and a slave. Hven to 
this day we have the double standard as between 
men and women in property rights, in wages, in 
government, in personal habits, in morals, and in 
opportunities. ) 

It has been customary for man to devote a con- 
siderable proportion of his energies to keeping 
woman ‘‘in her place’’; but just what her place is 
has not yet been accurately determined. 

I cannot forget the shock I received, during the 
World War, when I heard for the first time a 
Wwoman’s voice, in an Office-building, saying, 
‘“‘Going up?’’ I went up with her, and then down 
with her; and most of us ever since have been go- 
ing up and down with her. 

Undoubtedly, certain basic differences in sex, 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 177 


and the fact that women must be the bearers of 
the children of the race, must lead us to conclude 
that the occupations of women must be different 
to some extent from those of men; but the custom- 
ary notion that woman is essentially inferior to 
man mentally must be abandoned, in the light of 
present-day psychology. The ablest psycholo- 
gists tell us that woman’s mind is at least equal 
to that of man, and that any apparent superiority 
of man over woman must be regarded as being due 
to custom and to consequent differences in oppor- 
tunity and education. 


6. Government 


It has been widely supposed that our forms of 
government are the best that can be devised, and 
that the Constitution of the United States is an 
impeccable document that ought to stand as it is 
for all time. 

Albert Edward Wiggam, in ‘‘T’he New Deca- 
logue of Science,’’ says: ‘‘Government and social 
control are in the hands of expert politicians who 
have power, instead of expert technologists who 
have wisdom. There should be technologists in 
control of every field of human need and desire— 
in polities, business, industry, education, religion, 
ethics, philosophy, charity, law, health, labor, em- 
ployment; above all, in sociology, which is simply 
the application of all the sciences to human life 
and destiny. At present, educational, social and 


178 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


political government is almost wholly in the hands 
of business men who ‘know their business,’ but 
who do not, in any modern sense, know the science 
of society.’’ 

Glenn Frank, in the ‘‘Century Magazine’’ for 
January, 1925, says, ‘‘ Politics should be the point 
at which knowledge meets life and becomes so- 
cially effective.’?’ He says also, ‘‘The most we 
can permanently hope for from any body of office- 
holders is an intelligently flexible conservatism.’’ 


7. Business 


It has likewise been widely supposed that our 
business methods are the best that could be de- 
vised, and that, in America particularly, mer- 
chandising has reached the very acme of per- 
fection. 

But such is far from being the fact. Some 
notable advances have been made in manufactur- 
ing; but our methods of distribution still are con- 
fessedly complicated, slow, and extravagant. 
The producers get too little, and the consumers 
pay too much. An Illinois farmer gets thirty 
cents for a dozen eggs, and I pay ninety cents for 
them in New York—six months or a year later. 
I buy a ‘‘fresh-killed turkey’’ for Thanksgiving 
that was dead for the preceding Thanksgiving. 
This year, I paid fifty cents a pound for a turkey, 
and my ‘‘select’’ butcher assured me that I was 
getting a bargain because the turkeys being ad- 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 179 


vertised in the neighborhood at thirty-five cents 
were cold-storage turkeys, while his were ‘‘fresh 
killed.’’ So I paid the additional fifteen cents a 
pound, and concluded afterward that if my turkey 
at fifty cents a pound was ‘‘fresh killed,’’ then 
those other turkeys at thirty-five cents a pound 
must have been killed by one of the sons of Noah. 

Men engaged in the same business spend many 
millions of dollars every year trying to take 
business away from one another, through trav- 
eling salesmen and expensive newspaper and mag- 
azine and bill-board advertising, instead of spend- 
ing their money giving the public better goods at 
lower prices. 


8. Education 


It is sometimes implied that our education has 
reached a stage of matchless perfection, whereas, 
as a matter of fact, there never has been, in the 
thinking of our leaders in education, so much dis- 
satisfaction with our aims and curricula and 
equipment and methods and teachers as there is 
to-day. 

We have made gratifying progress during the 
last twenty-five years, particularly in buildings 
and equipment, and in the enrichment of the cur- 
ricula; but at the same time our educational facil- 
ities are tragically inadequate, and the majority 
of the youth of our land are without proper edu- 
cational advantages. 


180 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


We have many good schools, but the best of 
them could be far better. Professor Alexander 
Meiklejohn, in the ‘‘Century Magazine’’ for Jan- 
uary, 1925, makes a plea for a thorough overhaul- 
ing of college curricula and administration. He 
wants ‘‘a new college,’’ with about three hundred 
students, and ‘‘a small faculty’’ of twenty-five or 
thirty teachers, ‘‘a coherent, self-determining 
body,’’ without any board of trustees. In the cur- 
riculum of this college, there would be a new body 
of subject-matter with ‘‘instruction in intelli- 
gence,’’ and not ‘‘instruction in a number of 
subjects. ”’ 


g. Church 


It is taken for granted by many church people 
that the church is the one institution in the world 
that can admit of no change. 

Those who are outside the church are in no posi- 
tion to criticize it constructively. It remains, 
therefore, for those of us who are inside the 
church, who believe that it is the most important 
organization in the world, who believe in its mis- 
sion, who have confidence in its essential strength, 
and who believe that it ought to change, to indi- 
cate in what respects it ought to change. 

We see that the church too often places too much 
emphasis upon theology, and not enough emphasis 
upon thorough-going, intelligent, every-day, con- 
structive, practical Christian living; that it is too 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 181 


much controlled by the older people, and is con- 
ducted too exclusively in the interests of the 
adults; that it is too much a preacher’s institution, 
with too little responsibility and participation on 
the part of the members; that it tends to be static 
rather than dynamic and progressive; that it is 
too formalistic, and not sufficiently educational ; 
and that it is too self-centered, and has not yet 
learned how to codperate cordially and effectively 
with other churches and with agencies outside the 
church, for greater Christian effectiveness in the 
community and in the world. 


10. Sunday School 


It has been assumed by many of those who at- 
tend them that our Sunday schools are about as 
good as we can make them, but such is far from 
being the case. 

It would be exceedingly difficult to overestimate 
the good that has been accomplished through the 
Sunday schools, or to give too much credit to the 
faithful unpaid, and for the most part unappreci- 
ated, workers in them; but at the same time these 
schools need to be greatly improved, as the leaders 
in religious education recognize, in the following 
respects: (1) In attendance, Sunday school be- 
ing enlarged into church school, through a unifica- 
tion and coordination of all the educational 
agencies in the church, and through enlistment of 
larger numbers. (2) In equipment, with a school- 


182 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


house having school-rooms with permanent par- 
titions and educational apparatus. (3) In extent, 
more time being devoted to religious educa- 
tion, on Sunday and between Sundays. (4) In 
teaching, with better methods of securing and 
training teachers. (5) In supervision, profes- 
sionally trained supervisors being in charge. (6) 
In lessons, these to be effectively designed for the 
establishment of Christian character. (7) In 
control, the church officials being vitally interested 
in religious education, recognizing its supreme 
importance, and making adequate provision for it. 


DISCUSSION 


1. Dr. Walter Hullihen, president of the Uni- 
versity of Delaware, is reported as saying re- 
cently: ‘‘If modern evils are to be corrected, 
modern education must be truly practical. Stud- 
ies and disciplines that mold character and shape 
moral ideals and determine conduct must be given 
a central rather than a secondary place. The ris- 
ing tide of public opinion that is demanding 
popular instruction in religion, must sweep away 
all traditional barriers and give youth its spir- 
itual birthright.’’ 

2. Mr. George Eastman, of Rochester, New 
York, who has given away more than fifty-eight 
million dollars, is reported as follows: ‘‘If aman 
has wealth he has to make a choice. He can keep 
it together in a bunch, and then leave it for others 


CUSTOM AND PROGRESS 183 


to administer after he is dead. Or he can get it 
into action and have fun with it while he is alive. 
I prefer getting it into action and adapting it to 
human needs.”’ } 

3. A writer in the ‘‘New York Times’’ of Sun- 
day, December 14, 1924, said: ‘‘Numerous trusts 
created in England during the last four centuries 
have become obsolete because of changed condi- 
tions. Many of these trusts, naturally, repre- 
sented but small sums, and in some cases means 
have been found to divert the money. But in 
others great accumulations of capital are tied up. 
One of these funds was established to redeem 
captive Englishmen from the hands of pirates. 
Doubtless the creator of that fund never imag- 
ined that pirates one day would be confined to 
romance.”’ 4 

4. This same writer says further: ‘‘Men who 
have studied the great foundations agree that 
elasticity is-the first of many needs in creating 
these depositories for future generations. We 
have high authority for the apprehension that 
there is danger in the great foundations.’’ 

5. George Albert Coe, in his ‘‘Law and Freedom 
in the School,’’ says: ‘‘As the researcher in 
science or history serves neither self nor party, 
but the truth; as the true physician, when he 
faces disease, is guided neither by self-interest 
nor by opinions of the patient nor by popular con- 
ceptions of healing; as the faithful minister of 
religion endeavors to obey God rather than men, 


184 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


so the real educator, enduring (if need be) as 
seeing the invisible, leads forward into freedom a 
society that is fettered by selfishness and by 
institutionalized timidities.’’ 

6. For helpful chapters, see Robinson’s ‘‘The 
Mind in the Making,’’ Saxby’s ‘‘ Education of Be- 
havior,’’ Hayward’s ‘‘Re-Creating Human Na- 
ture,’’ Wallas’s ‘‘Our Social Heritage,’’ Columbia 
Associates’ ‘‘ An Introduction to Reflective Think- 
ing,’’ Dresser’s ‘‘Psychology in Theory and Ap- 
plication,’’ Ellwood’s ‘‘ An Introduction to Social 
Psychology,’’ Ogburn’s ‘‘Social Change,’’ Ross’ 
‘*Social Psychology.’’ 


CHAPTER IX 
HEAD TONICS 


I confess, for evident reasons, that I cannot 
recommend anybody’s hair tonic with any degree 
of confidence. But there are ten head tonics 
whose faithful use will guarantee to any one who 
may lose his hair that he will still have something 
left under it. 

These ten head tonics may be called rapidity, 
unity, certainty, continuity, activity, passivity, 
lucidity, intensity, utility, and humility. 


I. LEARN WITH RAPIDITY 


It is thought by many that the slow learner is a 
better learner than the rapid learner, but such is 
far from being the case, even when learning is 
used in the restricted sense, for, as Colvin and 
Bagley say, in their ‘‘Human Behavior,’’ the 
rapid learner is not of necessity the rapid for- 
getter. Slowness may be due to stupidity as well 
as to care and accuracy. 

My own experience in this regard may be en- 
couraging to any one who is a slow learner. I 


used to be quite slow in all my learning. In 
185 


186 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


school, I was slow in getting my lessons. I spent 
long hours on them. My room-mate in college 
could get his lessons in half the time. And I de- 
ceived myself into thinking that I would retain 
what I learned because I was slow, that my slow- 
ness somehow was a proof of profundity and 
substantiality. 

But, after a while, I came to see that I was de- 
ceiving myself, and I deliberately began to drive 
myself to greater rapidity in learning, until I 
now can learn far more rapidly and with more 
satisfactory results in every way. 

I was a very slow reader, but I have trained my- 
self to read with rapidity, until I can now read at 
least four times more rapidly than formerly; and 
now I get more out of what I read, and retain it 
for longer periods. 

I find no difficulty in reading two or three books 
in one day. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I 
put down this writing, and, while waiting for din- 
ner, read a new book through, in less than an hour. 
It was not a very large book, it is true, but earlier 
in life it would have taken me several hours to 
read it. 

Of course, naturally, the more any one reads, if 
he keeps mentally alert and is careful continuously 
to enrich his personality, the more rapidly he will 
read, not only because he has more perfectly 
mastered the technique of reading, but chiefly be- 
cause he has more to read with. He has a 
stronger personality, more experience with which 


HEAD TONICS 187 


to lay hold of the new, and he is more likely to be 
more familiar with the subject-matter of what he 
reads. Anything in psychology, for instance, is 
much easier for me than it used to be; principally, 
I presume, because I have read numerous books in 
psychology, have conducted experiments in psy- 
chology, have taught psychology, and am, there- 
fore, familiar with the facts and terminology of 
psychology. Consequently, though most books in 
psychology are unnecessarily abstract and ab- 
struse and difficult, I am able to read any of them 
with at least a fair degree of rapidity. 

It is necessary to recognize the desirability of 
rapidity, and deliberately to cultivate it, else in- 
crease in speed may not come with increase in ex- 
perience. Any one may train himself to see a 
whole sentence at a single glance and adequately 
to sense its meaning. 

A few years ago, Dr. Charles Fordyce, Dean of 
Teachers’ College, University of Nebraska, was 
reported as saying: ‘‘It is easier to read rapidly 
than slowly, and the rapid reader is the better in- 
terpreter because the sentence is the unit of 
thought. The mind, therefore, passes more rap- 
idly and readily from phrases or clauses to mean- 
ings than it does from a single word.’’ 


‘II. LEARN WITH UNITY 


A learner should have a plan and a goal for each 
piece of learning. He should learn things in units 


188 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


or ‘‘wholes,’’ and each whole should be of reason- 
able and conquerable size. 

He should face a single life problem, as if there 
were no others, and solve that as a single whole, 
just as in the solving of a problem in mathematics. 

He should set for himself a single ‘‘stint’’ of 
work to be mastered in a given period of time— 
a book or a part of a book to be read, a poem to 
be studied and memorized, a song to be learned. 

Such a learner soon will find that it is prac- 
tically impossible for him to let go of a unit of 
learning until he has mastered it, and he will have 
acquired a passion for completion that will make 
him a real leader in his chosen vocation. He has 
ceased to be a drifter, and has become a driver, 
driving himself toward successive successes. 

Prof. Wiliam A. McKeever, in his ‘‘ Psychology 
and Higher Life,’’ tells students how to study, as 
follows: (1) Have a program; (2) have a 
method; (3) train your attention; (4) test your 
strength; (5) be orderly; (6) be punctual; (7) 
take exercise and get sleep; (8) be cordial toward 
other people; (9) cultivate pure-mindedness; 
(10) be a diligent worker. 


Ill. LEARN WITH CERTAINTY 


It has been said that ‘‘the difference between a 
good student and a poor one is fifteen minutes.’’ 
A poor learner stops just short of complete mas- 
tery, while the good learner goes even beyond 


HEAD TONICS ~ 189 


apparent necessity, until he is certain that he has 
a full understanding of each particular unit of 
learning. 

One of the best things my father ever did for 
me was to teach me, by example and precept, to 
detest a ‘‘botch job.’? He was a carpenter and 
builder of the old school, in the days when a car- 
penter was a carpenter, when his work included 
the difficult making of cabinets and cornices that 
are now made by machinery. He had spent four 
years of hard work as an apprentice before he 
began to call himself a carpenter at all. He was 
a rapid, careful worker. He took a commendable 
pride in his work, and every piece of work was a 
masterpiece. He had a big tool-chest filled with 
the best tools that money could buy, and they 
always were sharp and clean and in order. 
Every piece of work had to be finished exactly 
right. 

What a great thing for the world if every 
human being had been trained to make a ‘‘good 
job’? of everything he does in life! How unfor- 
tunate that there are so many slipshod workers 
in the various vocations that have no reasonable 
pride in their work and that are content merely 
to ‘‘get by,’’ and, who, therefore, have never ex- 
perienced supreme satisfaction in a piece of work 
well done! 

One of my professors in college had, over his 
desk, in large letters, the old motto, ‘‘What is 
worth doing at all is worth doing well,’’ and that 


190 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


was the best of all his good teaching. <A student 
does not need, necessarily, to learn many facts 
in a class-room if he learns how to work effec- 
tively. 

I have as a life motto one that probably is not 
very original and that might not be of any value 
to anybody else, but ‘which has helped me: 
‘‘Wither do it or do not do it.’’ 

In all reasoning, there must be a facing of the 
facts as they actually are, without prejudice 
against their source. No one can learn until he 
is willing to know the facts, and to look them 
squarely in the face, though it may be an un- 
pleasant experience. The learner must seek the 
facts, from any and every source, and begin, in his 
thinking, with these facts. He who is afraid of 
facts must always remain an ignoramus. 

Along with these facts it is advisable frequently 
to consider also the conclusions of others. He 
who would be a leader among others in any calling 
must do his own thinking; but his thinking must 
begin where the thinking of others leaves off. 

Only a fool, therefore, will despise or ridicule 
or ignore the experts and the specialists. Of 
course, there are some specious specialists, whom 
we may call ‘‘highbrows,’’ and these are to be 
avoided. A highbrow has been defined as fol- 
lows: ‘‘A highbrow is a person who has never 
known any genuine experience in life. Senses 
has he, but he sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches 
not. Sensations never thrill him. He counts it 


HEAD TONICS 191 


coarse and crass to be of the earth earthy. 
Leaping from the cradle to the pinnacle of cul- 
ture with the aid and abetting of a system of edu- 
cation which loves words and despises facts, there 
he stands, precociously reflective. He knows not 
the meaning of reality, he never gets beyond men- 
tal mendicaney, and he never does a thing that 
gives the world a push.’’ 


IV. LEARN WITH CONTINUITY 


He who would be a real learner, and a success- 
ful leader, must make frequent attacks on units of 
study. 

He must never consider that he has attained; 
and, while making progress in the new, he will be 
reviewing the old through new approaches from 
different angles. 

He will be, therefore, a lifelong reader, in order 
to profit by the experiences of others and to stim- 
ulate his own mental activities. 

It is an easy thing to do the easy thing, and to 
neglect the worth-while activities that enrich per- 
sonality and result in leadership; and every one, 
therefore, should have a schedule of times for 
reading and study, and then steadfastly refuse to 
allow himself to be lured away from these by so- 
cial and amusement distractions. 

Merle Crowell, in the ‘‘American Magazine,’’ 
some time ago, reported an interview with the 
director of the evening session of the College of 


192 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


the City of New York, Frederick B. Robinson, 
Ph. D., who said, in part: ‘‘The man between 
forty and sixty is normally at the height of in- 
tellect and judgment. I find that there is hardly 
a subject in our curriculum that the average 
mature mind will not grasp as well as the younger 
mind, and with superior understanding. Men fail 
from lack of mental curiosity, attention, careful 
and comprehensive judgment, and moral purpose. 
. Our ambassador to Denmark, Dr. John D. Prince, 
is able to converse fluently in twenty-seven dif- 
ferent languages; but he did not know Danish, 
and was called on to make an address, in which he 
said, ‘You will pardon me if I speak to you to-day 
in Swedish. I will learn Danish, and be able to 
use it in an address to you next week’; and he kept 
his promise. Several years ago, W. A. Newman 
Dorland made an analysis of the activities of four 
hundred of the world’s most famous men, and 
found that, on the average, they produced their 
master work at fifty years of age, while most of 
them worked with unabated vigor until long past 
that age.’ 


V. LEARN WITH ACTIVITY 


Between periods of mental activity, the learner 
should engage in periods of physical activity, if 
he would gain economic mastery of his study 
units. ' 

Every successful learner should learn that he - 
is gaining time while spending time in ‘‘exercis- 


HEAD TONICS 193 


ing’’ physically, and he should find some way to 
engage regularly in bodily activity; in work or 
play, in walking or running, in rowing or swim- 
ming, with dumb-bells or Indian clubs, in boxing 
or bowling, in tennis or golf—there always is some 
good way if one is possessed of determination. 

Some years ago, in an article in the ‘‘Scientific 
American,’’ Dr. George Van Ness Dearborn was 
quoted as saying: ‘‘The student must have good 
health. He must have abundant air and exercise. 
He must have plenty of food and sleep. Atten- 
tion to a book should not be too long concentrated 
without pause. It should by habit be concen- 
trated vigorously, but only for relatively short 
periods of time. No one can sit for an hour, or an 
hour and a half, without changing his position, ex- 
cept at a considerable loss of nerve economy, and 
it is under such a condition naturally difficult to 
avoid going to sleep, partial or complete. Hivery 
twenty minutes or so, a student should walk 
around the room for a minute or two, for this 
activity draws some of the blood out of his brains 
into his legs; moreover, it relieves the injurious 
long fixation of the eyes.’’ 

If the student will observe the laws of health 
as regards food, exercise, and sleep, he will find 
it to be practically impossible to work too hard. 
Indeed, the danger with most learners is that they 
will-not work hard enough. 

Shortly after I entered college, I heard a lecture 
by the president of the institution, and there was 


194 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


one sentence in it that I have always remembered. 
He said: ‘‘You have better buildings here, and 
better apparatus, better facilities in every way, 
than I had when I was in college; but remember 
that it takes the same kind of hard work on the 
part of students to get an education now that it 
took back in those days. Not all the teachers and 
all the apparatus in the world can give you 
an education. You must acquire it yourselves 
through hard work.’’ 

Not only is it true that schools can only assist 
an individual in educating himself; but it also is 
true that he may, with greater difficulty of course, 
educate himself without schools into a position of 
assured success. 


VI. LEARN WITH PASSIVITY. 


Passivity is an aid to activity. Relaxation 
must follow action. After a period of study, there 
should be a briefer period of rest, not only for the 
sake of further activity, but in order to give what 
has been learned a chance to become properly 
associated and fixed with what had been learned 
before, to allow it to soak down into the subcon- 
scious self, so to speak. 

Every student should learn for himself how 
much sleep he needs in order to keep in good 
health and to do his best work, and then get that 
amount of sleep regularly. 

One eminent educator got along for years with 


HEAD TONICS 195 


an average of about five hours of sleep in every 
twenty-four; and another educator used to take 
short naps, it is said, holding a ball in his hand 
over a tin pan, and, when the ball dropped from 
his hand into the pan, he awoke and went to work 
again. Both of these men were exceptional, of 
course. The average man seems to need about 
eight hours of sleep in every twenty-four hours. 

Sleep is nature’s plan for renewing the burnt- 
out nervous system and replacing fatigue with 
energy, and there is nothing ever to be gained by 
trying to go against the fundamental laws of one’s 
being. 

Every one should learn to go to sleep quickly - 
when he goes to bed. It is largely a matter of 
training. He should school himself to go to bed 
without his work and his worries, throwing these 
off deliberately, cheerfully, and completely. Af- 
ter a faithful worker has done a good day’s work, 
he may confidently turn the universe over to God 
for at least eight hours. 

Moreover there are many who find it a great ad- 
vantage to take a nap regularly some time during 
the day. Personally I find this to be of great 
benefit, and I have never thought that only five 
minutes would ‘‘do me more harm than good,’’ as 
some seem to think. I find that five minutes will 
do very well, although fifteen minutes is better; 
and sometimes thirty minutes is better still. 

When I was a Sunday-school field worker, I 
used to speak from three to five times a day 


196 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


in conventions and institutes, for weeks at a 
stretch, going from church to church and spending 
only a day or two in a place. After talking for 
two hours in the morning and eating sparingly of 
the ‘‘dinner on the grounds,’ I would slip into the 
church and stretch out on an uncushioned pew, 
with a song-book for a pillow, and go to sleep in- 
stantly. Presently the women would come in and 
begin talking around me, and the children would 
be running up and down the aisles past me, but 
I slept the sleep of the tired for from twenty to 
thirty minutes, and would get up ready to begin 
all over again. Sometimes I would get another 
nap late in the afternoon, in preparation for the 
work of the evening. 

Oftentimes, I have found it to be of great ad- 
vantage to lie down for a few minutes between 
study or work periods and to relax without going 
to sleep. 

There was a time when I could neither rest nor 
sleep in the daytime, and found it difficult to sleep 
at night; but I deliberately and determinedly 
learned to work when I worked and to rest when 
J rested; and after that I could do better work and 
more work. 


VII. LEARN WITH LUCIDITY 


All good learning must be with clear under- 
standing, with associated meanings. 
This involves the progressive building up of a 


HEAD TONICS Vy) 


working vocabulary, and the continuous acquir- 
ing of adequate concepts, through the use of 
dictionaries and books of synonyms, and the care- 
ful comparison of every new word with those 
already learned. 

For years I made it a rule never to pass over, 
in my reading, any word of whose meaning I was 
in doubt, and to note carefully any falsities or in- 
felicities of speech. 

It is an advantage, also, to make it a point to 
associate with those who possess good vocabu- 
laries and who know how to use words effectively, 
and to hear reputable speakers, listening criti- 
cally, and at the same time sympathetically, for 
self-improvement. 

It is not enough to study words alone, in build- 
ing up an adequate association of concepts that 
are rich in meaning. It is advisable also to have 
first-hand contacts with the things for which 
words stand, as far as that is possible. Some- 
times pictures must be made to serve in place of 
the things pictured. 


VIII. LEARN WITH INTENSITY 


Every learner must learn to concentrate his 
whole attention upon the unit of study before him, 
deliberately shutting out everything else, and to 
hold himself doggedly to his task, despite any con- 
ditions that may be unfavorable to the best work. 

At the same time, the student should seek to be 


198 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


in good physical and mental condition at all times; 
and to get away from others while studying, as 
far as that is practicable; and to make himself as 
comfortable as possible. 

H. Addington Bruce says: ‘‘There are some 
whose power to study efficiently is lowered by 
studying too soon after eating or exercising. 
For definite physiological reasons the brain should 
not be taxed for at least half an hour after meals 
- or after physical exercise. Others err by study- 
ing in clothing that is too tight for them. Even 
if it is not so tight as to cause discomfort and re- 
sultant distraction of the attention, tight clothing 
injuriously affects students by interfering with 
the blood’s circulation. Another common cause 
of impairment of study power is found in disre- 
gard of the importance of having good lighting 
conditions when one reads or writes. Some 
students habitually study in too dim a light, oth- 
ers in a light that is too bright. Both lack and 
excess of light are productive of eye-strain. And 
eye-strain has a notoriously unfavorable influence 
on study ability.’’ 

It is necessary, also, if any one would throw 
himself into his work with enthusiasm, to keep his 
eye on his life goal and persistently to cultivate a 
quickening interest. 

Dr. George Van Ness Dearborn says: ‘‘When 
you have really acquired a real interest you will 
learn almost reflexly and without any great effort 
on your part, because it will be a pleasure to you. 


HEAD TONICS 199 


The best way to develop an interest in any subject 
is by cultural reading. Read particularly on sub- 
jects allied more or less to what you are studying. 
Another way to develop interest is by thinking for 
yourself of those relations. A third method is to 
associate with people who already have an inter- 
est. Whatever you have an interest in you en- 
joy doing, and that is the reason why well-adapted 
work in the long run is the most certain, if not the 
greatest, of human delights.”’ 

This word ‘‘delights’’ suggests the important 
thought that every student should cultivate the 
practice of good humor, for the sake of progress 
in learning, as well as development in personality. 
He should not allow himself to be vexed or irri- 
tated by any defects in his environment that are 
unavoidable, by his own inner failures and de- 
ficiencies, or by anything that anybody else says 
or does. 

Ijl-humor is a deadly poison that interferes 
with digestion and clogs reason. The learner, 
therefore, should consistently look on the ‘‘bright 
side of life,’’? ‘‘count his many blessings,’’ look 
ahead to something better to come, be glad that 
he is alive, keep clean and sweet inside his soul, 
treasure a glad heart. 


IX. LEARN WITH UTILITY 


The learner must learn that the mere acquiring 
of knowledge is not learning, except very inci- 


200 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


dentally. He who only knows is no more educated 
than a truck is educated when it is carrying a load 
of books. 

Learning is, in part, knowing; but much more 
is it being and doing. The learner therefore must 
learn not for possession but for use; surely not 
for money, for that is the smallest thing in life. 
He must learn for the enrichment of personality, 
in order to give out to others something that is 
fine and helpful. Indeed, it may be said that no 
one is learning at all, in any true sense, unless he 
is doing while he is learning, for we ‘‘learn by do- 
ing.’? Learning is itself controlled behavior, 
thinking and doing. 

Furthermore the learner constantly should 
seek to make immediate use of his learning, with 
advantage to himself and others, as far as this is 
practicable, regarding future distant uses as be- 
ing of only secondary importance. 

Consequently, he should be a painstaking ex- 
perimenter, always trying out things. He should 
be forever asking himself such questions as the 
following: What are the exact facts? How may 
these facts be related to my life? If these facts 
are facts, why are they facts? Is this true? 
Why is it true? What is the significance of its 
truth? What am I going to do about it? What? 
why? when? Where? What for? 

I am speaking now to Mr. Average Man or to 
Miss and Mrs. Average Woman. It is not at all 
necessary to be an outstanding genius, to be pos- 


HEAD TONICS 201 


sessed of an exceptional I.Q., to be a Ph. D., in 
order to be a constructive, purposive, practical 
thinker, and therefore to be a real leader among 
human beings. 


X. LEARN WITH HUMILITY 


It is true that ‘‘a little learning is a dangerous 
thing,’’ if that little is too highly regarded, and is 
considered enough to stop with. 

The colossal conceit of the average ignoramus 
is exceeded only by his ‘‘funniness.’? A park 
statue would have to laugh at him if it looked at 
him. It would almost seem now and then that the 
less a man has learned, the more proud he is of it, 
and the more highly he regards himself. 

Just before the last Presidential election, I over- 
heard two men talking politics in the smoking- 
compartment of a Pullman. One of them talked 
with all the assurance and the self-sufficiency of 
an all-wise and infallible political oracle, and at 
the same time there was no evidence in his talk of 
his having made any study of politics and 
economics and history. The whole source of 
his wisdom seemed to be his one newspaper 
and his own experience, both of which were pa- 
thetically circumscribed, if one might judge by 
the paucity of thought in the multiplicity of his 
words. 

Eivery true learner will quickly learn that he 
needs to be a progressive learner, throughout his 


~ 202 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


entire life, sitting humbly at the feet of those who 
are more advanced in learning than heis. No one 
ever can be educated, any more than he can be 
fed. He must be fed three or four meals a day for 
all his days, and his soul also must be frequently 
and continually fed, if he is to be actually alive up 
to the very time of his death and burial. 

Let me insert here some lines I wrote for a 
young man in whom I am interested. 


Use Your Heap 


Wake up, young man, and use your head. 
Asleep, you might as well be dead. 


At school, you learn of this and that, 
But what counts most ’s beneath your hat. 


Your teachers tell you what is true, 
But you must think it through and through. 


In books you read what wise men know, 
But you must see just why it ’s so. 


It ’s fme for you to know the truth, 
But you must strive to be the truth. 


It ’s what you fit into your life 
That helps you through this world of strife. 


No other one can think for you, 
Nor yet for you can be or do. 


HEAD TONICS 203 


The roads of men are to you shown 
That you may rightly build your own. 


Then, as you tread the path you ’ve made, 
You ’ll walk with gladness, unafraid. 


DISCUSSION 


1. Arnaud C. Marts, of New York City, has 
made a study of 101 American colleges and their 
137,579 graduates, of whom 28,679 are teachers, 
23,415 are housewives, 14,967 are ministers, 7,630 
are lawyers, 7,335 are business executives, 5,353 
are physicians, 4,122 are engineers, 3,887 are mer- 
chants, 3,439 are farmers, 1,711 are journalists, 
1,294 are chemists, 1,156 are authors, 902 are ac- 
countants, 220 are architects, and the others are 
scattered among various callings. Of the teach- 
ers, 4,303 are college professors and 533 college 
presidents. 

2. It is said that Samuel F.. B. Morse, the in- 
ventor of the telegraph, sat in the Senate Gallery 
at Washington, on the evening of March 3, 1848, 
when he was fighting for the bill that was to give 
him his opportunity to experiment with the long- 
distance telegraph, with less than one dollar in his 
pocket, having come to the end of his rope. It 
was nearly midnight, when the Senate would ad- 
journ, and still his bill had not. passed. Two 
senators told him that it could not pass in the 
short time that remained. He went to his hotel, 


204. PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


and subsequently wrote to a friend as follows: 
‘‘Painful as was the prospect of renewed disap- 
pointment, I am sure you, my dear sir, will under- 
stand me when I say that, knowing from ex- 
perience whence my help must come in any diff- 
culty, I soon disposed of my cares, and slept as 
quietly as a child.’’ 

3. For helpful chapters, see Dearborn’s ‘‘ How 
to Learn Easily,’’ Whipple’s ‘‘How to Study Ef- 
fectively,’’ Pyle’s ‘‘Psychology of Learning,’’ 
Kitson’s ‘‘How to Use Your Mind,’’ Bagley and 
Keith’s ‘‘An Introduction to Teaching,’’ Tralle’s 
‘‘Dynamiecs of Teaching,’’ Coe’s ‘‘What Ails Our 
Youth?’’ Dunlap’s ‘‘EHlements of Scientific Psy- 
chology,’’ Pillsbury’s ‘‘Fundamentals of Psy- 
chology,’’ Starch’s ‘‘Educational Psychology,’’ 
McDougall’s ‘‘Outline of Psychology.’’ 


CHAPTER X 
THE WILL TO WIN 


Nobody can ‘‘make up’’ your mind for you. 
You must do that for yourself; and the way you do 
it will determine your success or failure in life. 

No one has a will, if we are to follow McDougall, 
as ‘‘a faculty, an entity of any kind, distinct from 
the rest of the personality. ‘The will’ is charac- 
ter in action.”’ 

And it is character in action in any individual 
that wins in the struggles of life. It is not char- 
acter aS a mere possession, in cold storage, but 
willed character under the control of intelligent 
willing on the part of those who have learned how 
to think effectively, that has given to the world its 
leaders. 

The accumulated wisdom of the psychologists 
on this subject, so far as its practical applica- 
tions are concerned, avoiding its metaphysical 
mazes, may be presented in the form of seven 
admonitions. 


I. MAKE UP YOUR MIND QUICKLY 


Face the situation with undivided attention, 


review the acquired facts involved, and come to a 
205 


206 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


decision immediately. Unless there are absent 
certain obtainable facts that are essential to an 
intelligent decision, there is no excuse for any 
delay. You can make up your mind at one time 
as well as another if you make up your mind to 
do it—provided you have a mind, and have 
learned how to use it. 

I have watched a banker friend ‘‘in action,”’ 
and have seen him dispose of a variety of matters 
of importance in an hour, placing loans, renewing 
notes, accepting security, approving or rejecting 
applications for accommodation, and always calm 
and courteous and confident. One day, he closed 
a million-dollar deal within five minutes after the 
beginning of the interview. He has trained his 
mind to work machine-gun fashion, and he rarely 
makes a mistake. 

Another friend faced the question ‘‘to go or not 
to go,’’ one day; and in less than a minute he had 
decided to go on a thousand-mile trip, and in 
another twenty-five minutes had his grip packed 
and was at the station. 

Contrast with this quick decision the vacilla- 
tion of another friend, a young woman whom I 
was accompanying to a lecture. Toward the end 
of our little trip on the street-car, we had a choice 
of two routes. We could stay on the car until 
we had gone another block, and then walk three 
blocks, or we could change cars and ride three 
blocks and then walk one block. I left it to her 
to decide; but she could not do it—not in a whole 


THE WILL TO WIN 207 


block on the car. When the car stopped at the 
eross-town car-line where we had to get off if we 
changed cars at all, she was still undecided; and, 
just as the door was about to be closed, I had to 
grasp her by the arm and say, ‘‘Come on, let us 
get off here’’—else she would have been standing 
there until now. 

Some people cannot decide about a vocation. 
The world is full of drifters who simply cannot 
decide on a life calling. It would be better for 
them to decide on almost any vocation and make a 
mistake than not to decide at all, for even a wrong 
decision might lead to another better decision. 


Il. ACT PROMPTLY ON YOUR 
DECISIONS 


Proceed at once to put your decisions into effect, 
unless you can give yourself valid reasons for 
delay. 

When you meet another person, decide which 
Way you are going, and go that way, and keep on 
going. When crossing a street, take in the situa- 
tion quickly and carefully, come to an immediate 
decision, and either cross at once or do not cross 
—else you may never have another chance. 

Hesitation, indecision, vacillation, wabbling, is 
dangerous, not only with regard to immediate 
consequences, but to the individual himself, be- 
cause of the effect on his character. 

A prompt and confident acting on decisions is 


208 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


an expression of stability, reliability, dependabil- 
ity. Men of strong character make decisions 
quickly, act upon them promptly, and at once 
forget all about them, so they can go on to some- 
thing else important. 

Did you ever know people who never seem to 
be able to make any decisions that stay made? 
They never make a purchase of clothing without 
regretting the selection afterward. They go to 
the theater or to the church, and they are seated 
too far back, or too far forward, or too far on 
one side, and they wish they had made a difter- 
ent decision. They cannot see anything or hear 
anything that is going on because they are too 
much occupied with themselves, wishing they were 
where they are not, or were not where they are. 
They might better have stayed at home. Only 
then they would wish they had gone. 

Of course, a wise person does change his mind 
sometimes, when there is evident good reason for 
doing so. He is not ashamed to change his mind 
about the same thing three or four times a day 
if necessity arises. He may find, on acting ona 
decision, that he has made a mistake, as any one 
might have done though he had spent a month 
coming to a decision; and he just as quickly makes 
another decision. 

There are times when experimentation is the 
only feasible method of arriving at a wise con- 
clusion; and an intelligent, trained thinker has the 


THE WILL TO WIN 209 


courage to experiment, and thus to risk failure, 
in order to achieve the highest success. 


Ill. KEEP YOUR GOAL IN VIEW 


Every important life-goal involves many deci- 
sions and efforts. 

The controlling goal in my life during these two. 
months is the writing of this book. This goal 
claims the bulk of my attention and absorbs my 
energies. I stop from time to time to eat and 
sleep and exercise. Some other minor goals 
claim my attention occasionally and enlist my 
energies—the teaching of some classes, the de- 
livering of a lecture, a dinner engagement, a con- 
ference with a committee, a magazine article that 
‘‘pops into my mind’’ in the intervals of book- 
writing—but the bulk of my working time and 
thought and effort, for these two months, is de- 
voted to the writing of this book; and the fact 
that you are reading it is proof that I success- 
fully kept this particular goal in view until I 
reached it. 

If I were one of those individuals who lose sight 
of a goal as soon as they get well started toward it, 
I should never finish this book; because I should 
have turned aside long ago to some other kind 
of book, first to begin and to quit a book on mem- 
ory, then to begin on a novel, then to turn to the 
writing of a play—never finishing anything. 
Else I might have decided not to write a book at 


210 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


all, but to turn to something else, and to get 
nowhere again. If I were that type of man, you 
could know only one thing about me, namely, that 
I never finish anything I begin. 

Failure to finish this particular book might not 
brand me as a non-finisher, and therefore as a 
man of weak character, because I might be asked 
by my friends to undertake something that ap- 
pealed to me as being far more important; and 
this new undertaking would then become my ab- 
sorbing goal, and the book-writing would be put 
aside, just as now I am putting aside for this 
book the writing of a series of short articles for 
a magazine and an invitation to speak in a con- 
vention. 


IV. THINK YOUR WAY THROUGH TO 
WORTHY GOALS 
+ 


Unless the individual chooses his life’s goals 
intelligently, reaching them through many sec- 
ondary judgments and decisions, he will be for- 
ever expending his energies upon the useless or 
unimportant things of life, or will be self-willed 
and headstrong. 

William McDougall, in his ‘‘Outline of Psy- 
chology,’’ says: ‘‘Recently, after a rainy day, I 
set out for an evening stroll, in company with 
a square-jawed extrovert. Our purpose was 
merely to get a little exercise and fresh air. 
Sighting a deserted farm-house, on a hill a little 


THE WILL TO WIN tye 


way from the road, we turned toward it, moved 
merely by a very mild curiosity. Very .soon we 
had lost our direction among the trees. The 
mosquitoes swarmed, it was unpleasantly damp 
under foot, and the undergrowth was dense. But 
in vain I suggested a return to the road. My 
companion kept trying one direction after another. 
At last I put it to him, ‘Why are you so set on 
finding that house?’ At once the reply came, ‘Oh, 
I hate to be beaten!’ And I believe his reply 
expressed the whole truth. Of this type is the 
inveterate rock-climber, who, caring nothing for 
scenery and bored by a walk over the hilltops, 
spends every holiday in scrambling up ‘chimneys’ 
and precipices and in devising new and more dif- 
ficult ways of getting to the top of a mountain. 
Somewhat similar is the motive of the financier or 
business man who sets out to make a fortune and 
who, having made it, cannot rest or take up any 
rational mode of life, but persists in seeking new 
worlds to conquer. Yet another type of spe- 
cialized and unbalanced character is that formed 
under the influence of a master sentiment or some 
one object. The object may be a person, or an 
animal, or a house; it may be ‘the single tax’ or 
‘prohibition’; it may be old china, or pewter, or 
first editions, or beetles. In respect to all other 
goals, the man may be vacillating and weak; but 
in respect to his one hobby, he shows the utmost 
persistence. ’’ 

Not only is it important to choose goals intel- 


212 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


ligently, but it is necessary to learn and to utilize 
the best means of reaching these goals. It is 
not enough to be doggedly determined. Worthy 
ends cannot be reached magically through the ex- 
ercise of ‘‘will-power.’’ 

Take public speaking, for example. Probably 
almost any individual might become an effective 
speaker if he would determine to become one; and 
then practise patiently and persistently and in- 
telligently, with the aid of teachers and books, 
utilizing the sum of human wisdom on the subject, 
which may be summarized as follows: 

(1) Speak confidently. Others have learned, 
and why not you? Others have made many fail- 
ures, and why not you? Put aside your fears and 
hesitations and self-consciousness and timidities, 
and get at it and keep at it. Speak frequently, 
seeking suitable opportunities. Public speakers 
are not born, except incidentally. They are 
made, and chiefly self-made. 

(2) Speak correctly. Arrange your material 
in logical, effective order, always making the most 
careful preparation, and seek to use correct Kng- 
lish. If your early training in English was bad 
or inadequate, you can, nevertheless, through dili- 
gent study and practice, correct your defects in 
grammar and diction and pronunciation. 

(3) Speak distinctly. Learn how to articulate 
correctly and to enunciate distinctly, so that 
every listener can understand every word. Prac- 
tise speaking the various sounds of the language, 


THE WILL TO WIN 213 


separately and in combination. Read aloud to 
some member of the family every day, watching 
your utterance. And do not be afraid to open 
your mouth and energize your diaphragm. 

(4) Speak variedly. Speak with proper em- 
phasis and modulation, so as to avoid the effect 
of monotony and to compel attention and under- 
standing and appreciation and appropriation. 
As to emphasis, emphasize each new and signifi- 
cant word in a paragraph of speech. The new is 
that which occurs for the first time in the partic- 
ular paragraph. Through such emphasis you 
will compel attention to the words that will bear 
the burden in yielding the meaning of what you 
are saying. As to modulation, this has to do with 
variation in the pitch of the voice, which should 
be continuously sliding up and down, and back 
and forth, in accordance with the meaning of what 
you are saying. Put ‘‘expression’’ into your 
speaking. 

(5) Speak rapidly. The slow speaker is almost 
never an effective speaker. The listeners appre- 
hend rapidly if at all, and in units of thought; 
and a whole group of words is required to present 
a unit of thought. Therefore it should be spoken 
quickly. Of course, speech never should be so 
rapid as to prevent appropriate distinctness and 
emphasis and modulation, and the rate of speech 
should vary according to the thought and the 
length of sentences, with occasional short pauses 
for emphasis; but, if this is kept in mind, it is 


214 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


difficult to speak too rapidly. No matter how 
slow you are ‘‘naturally,’’ you can speed up, if 
you will. . 

(6) Speak originally. Study other speakers, 
but do not copy any of them. Develop an indi- 
vidual style and method, as far as that is possible. 
In other words, express your own true developed 
personality in all your speaking. Particularly 
think up new, fresh, interesting ways in which to 
begin a speech, avoiding all formal, stereotyped 
introductions. 

(7) Speak purposefully. Never speak merely 
to ‘‘express’’ yourself, or only to entertain. It 
is well to entertain, but entertainment should be 
incidental. Indulge in humor, and do not be 
afraid to do it, but let it be a means and not an 
end in itself. Have a definite, specific purpose 
every time you speak. Plan to ‘‘get something 
over’’ into life. Build your talk around or into 
a single unifying dynamic theme that will enrich 
personality through the development of an ideal 
or attitude. 

(8) Speak simply. Get to the point directly. 
Let your subject move along easily from point to 
point. Keep away from unusual words. Beware 
of making a display of your information or ideas. 
Talk simply and sincerely and naturally, as one 
human being to other human beings. Begin 
quietly, and ‘‘warm up’’ gradually. 

(9) Speak enthusiastically. Be physically in 
earnest, as well as morally in earnest, supple- 


THE WILL TO WIN 215 


menting words and voice with facial expression 
and appropriate gestures. Do not yell and ‘‘saw 
the air,’’ do not vociferate and gesticulate, but 
at the same time throw yourself into your speech, 
speaking with subdued passion and controlled 
animation. Such speaking suggests the impor- 
tance of what you are saying, and produces con- 
viction in the minds of your listeners. 

(10) Speak dramatically. Tell stories, use il- 
lustrations, utilize figures of speech, introduce 
conversations, impersonate characters, thus ap- 
pealing strongly to the imagination and feeling 
and will. Do not merely talk about truth, but 
show it in action in life situations, and seek to 
make the truth real and attractive and effective 
in life. 


V. DO THE HARD THING WHEN 
NECESSARY 


I think it is a mistake to follow the advice of 

those who recommend that we go out of our way 
to do at least one hard thing every day for the 
sake of self-discipline. 
_ Any individual who intelligently thinks his way 
through to worthy goals, as has been suggested, 
will always need to be doing the hard thing from 
time to time in realizing these goals, without hav- 
ing to seek difficulties deliberately. 

Probably here is the place to say a few words 
’ regarding conscience. We must not think of con- 


216 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


science as being a faculty of the mind, an inner 
light of the soul, an unerring guide, an inborn 
principle. Conscience is not an instinct at all, 
but rather a product of reason. It is not some- 
thing that is given, but rather something that is 
acquired. It is not fixed, but rather is capable 
of continual improvement. 

‘‘Conscience,’’ says McDougall, ‘‘is moral char- 
acter—character developed under moral guid- 
ance, character in which the moral sentiments are 
duly incorporated in the system of the sentiments 
and, through the medium of the sentiment of self- 
regard, are given due weight in all moral issues; 
character consolidated by habitual and consistent 
decision and action, in accordance with the 
promptings of the moral sentiments and of an 
unyielding self-respect.’’ 

Some of the worst deeds in history have been 
done conscientiously; but at the same time every 
individual always should act conscientiously, at 
whatever cost. If he goes wrong in this way, he 
needs to get a better conscience. In the meantime 
there is no other better guide. He can act only 
according to his present ‘‘moral lights,’’ in har- 
mony with his present moral character, if he is to 
be true to himself and to others. Whatever this 
costs, he should pay the price, courageously, 
cheerfully, hopefully. 

He who makes it a practice to travel in the easy 
way of life, is pretty sure to find himself going 
astray or even heading toward perdition. 


THE WILL TO WIN 217 


VI. CULTIVATE STRONG DESIRES 


Geraldine Farrar has been reported as saying: 
““If you want anything badly enough to go after 
it, heart and soul, tooth and nail, you will get it. 
Life is very short, but it can be very full if we 
plan it right. I prefer to do the work which 
makes me happiest and gives happiness to those 
who imspire it in me. If I ever had to find a new 
job im which I could neither sing nor act, I would 
not rest until I found some form of work which 
I would enjoy. Love your job, whatever it is, and 
it will repay you in money, happiness, and suc- 
cess.*” 

Mary Garden, in her autobiography, tells of 
her consuming desire to become a singer and of 
her heartbreaking search for the right teacher in 
Paris, at a critical period in her training. She 
says: ‘*Here, then, I was at a pretty pass—hav- 
ing tried a score of the best teachers in Paris, 
studying now with a master and conscious all the 
while of the fact that I was not progressing. 
What was I to do? _Where was I to turn? You 
may believe me that I spent many an anxious and 
sleepless night trying to find an answer that 
would satisfy me.”’ 

And she tells how, fimally, she did find the right 
teacher. ‘‘He knew how to produce his effects; 
and what interested me was that he could explain 
how this was done in a way I could understand.’’ 

We should have a thousand Geraldine Farrars 


218 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


and Mary Gardens if we had a thousand who 
really wanted to sing as these two wanted to sing. 
So with the world’s artists; they had strong artis- 
tic desires. So with the world’s great writers; 
they wanted to write. So with the great sur- 
geons; they had strong desires. So with the 
great teachers; they wanted exceedingly to teach 
effectively. 

Whatever you want to be, want it enough to 
pay the price it will cost. Make strong your de- 
sires through study and reading, and through as- 
sociation with those who have similar desires. 
And, when you want anything, you must want the 
preparation that will enable you to get it, and that 
will lead you to pay the price of that preparation. 

When I started on a long winding path of prep- 
aration, I had only four dollars in money, but 
I had something else that was worth more than 
four millions of dollars, namely, a desire; and 
that desire kept me in school continuously for 
twelve years. 

It is reported that students working their way 
through Yale, last year, earned more than three 
hundred thousand dollars, and that New York 
University students, during the same time, earned 
more than six hundred thousand dollars in work 
obtained through the university’s employment 
bureau. I know a Columbia student who got fifty 
dollars, the other day, for a pint of his blood, and 
he is to give another transfusion soon to the same 
patient. 


THE WILL TO WIN 219 


VII. FINISH WHAT YOU UNDERTAKE 


One New York business man goes to the extreme 
of never hiring brilliant men in his organization, 
contending that they are ‘‘quick starters, but poor 
finishers. ’’ 

This man is mistaken in thinking that all bril- 
liant ‘‘starters’’ are ‘‘poor finishers,’’ but he cer- 
tainly is right in thinking that a man, brilliant or 
not, must be a good finisher in order to be suc- 
cessful. He raises five questions in hiring men, 
as follows: (1) Has he good health? (2) Has 
he saved money? (3) Does he talk and write ef- 
fectively? (4) Does he finish what he starts? 
(5) Is he possessed of real courage? 

It is an incontrovertible fact that any individ- 
ual, though he may have only average ability, will 
succeed in any worthy and suitable undertaking 
if he simply will stick to it. In school, he will get 
his diploma if he will keep at patient plodding, 
and not get discouraged. I have proved, in my 
own experience, that almost any school will give 
almost any individual a diploma if he will keep 
working and hang around long enough. They 
will give him a diploma after a while in order to 
get rid of him. 

In an article entitled, ‘‘How Writers Work,’’ 
in one of the magazines, a writer shows how the 
successful writers do their work, for the most 
part by schedule, grinding out all the way from 
one to six thousand words a day, day after day. 


220 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


One of these writers writes a hundred thousand 
words a month, and has had that much printed 
every month for years. One of the writers is 
quoted as saying: ‘‘A steady grind is perhaps 
not the roseate-hued life which the beginner pic- 
tures the successful writer as having. But the 
fact remains that those who have achieved, do 
follow out such a program and follow it con- 
scientiously and regularly. The surprising thing 
of all is that we love it. Because to do the work 
one likes can never be drudgery, but by far the 
most enjoyable thing in life.”’ 

Some writers have persisted in this patient 
grinding-out process for years before ever they 
could get anybody to publish what they wrote. 
It is said that William Dean Howells, one of the 
greatest of the American masters of English, 
once sent some verses to every magazine of any 
standing in America, and they were rejected by 
each and all; but, instead of being discouraged 
and quitting, he sent them to England, and they 
were accepted. 

H. H. Van Loan, giving advice to young 
writers, in the ‘‘Story World,’’ says: ‘‘If you 
write two or three years without selling a story, 
do not get discouraged. Just look at the fun you 
have had. I get a lot of fun out of every story I 
write. J was a year trying to sell ‘The Virgin of 
Stamboul.’ I peddled ‘The Great Redeemer’ 
fourteen months before I finally found a producer 


THE WILL TO WIN 221 


who thought enough of it to buy it. A story that 
one producer will give ten thousand dollars for 
another producer would not give five cents for if 
it were inlaid with gold. ‘The Covered Wagon’ 
is going to make a million or more for Famous 
Players-Lasky, and yet I know of a firm that held 
this story for weeks and refused to pay a very 
meager price for it because, in their opinion, it 
was ‘merely a lot of wagons.’ ”’ 

In the ‘‘Story World”? for April, 1924, there was 
a story about Jack London, from which I quote 
the following: ‘‘Jack London, a loafer on the 
Oakland water front, a tramp, a jailbird, a sailor, 
a roustabout in Alaska, was world famous as a 
writer at twenty-six. At the beginning, he wrote 
stories, articles, and even sonnets, and most of 
them were returned to him. A San Francisco 
editor who knew him in those first brilliant days 
of struggle has told us how the young London 
had two sticks driven in the ground, to which he 
had attached a wire. His rejection slips were 
strung on that wire, and it was not long until 
it was full. He lived to see the day when he had 
sold every story and article for which the slips 
stood—and he sold them at one of the highest 
rates ever given to an American writer, and per- 
haps never exceeded by the price given to but one 
or two writers, living or dead. During the last 
year of London’s life, the ‘Cosmopolitan Maga- 
zine’ paid him well over seventy thousand dollars 
for his twelve-months’ output. And this vast sum 


299, PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


did not take into consideration his book royalties, 
or his picture and serial rights. It is safe to say 
that Jack London earned nearly two hundred 
thousand dollars in one year. He once wrote to 
a friend, ‘Better not begin to write unless you are 
not afraid to work, work, work, to work early 
and late, unremittingly and always.’ ”’ 

Some one has said that ‘‘a winner never quits, 
and a quitter never wins,’’ and that ‘‘opportunity 
is made by the good men, and pined for by the 
poor.”’ 

A California girl named O’Flaherty, who won 
the long-distance swimming race, in San Francisco 
Bay, several years ago, was asked by a reporter 
to explain how she did it, and she said: ‘‘ Well, 
I just kept on going. Once I felt that my 
strength was gone and that I would have to quit; 
everything was getting black. But I said to my- 
self, ‘The O’Flahertys never quit,’ and I just 
kept going.”’ 


DISCUSSION 


1. It ought to be encouraging to ordinary mor- 
tals that practical psychology need not wait on 
the settlement of the questions in dispute among 
philosophical psychologists. Practical psychol- 
ogy offers to all of us suggestion and inspiration 
for the enrichment of our personalities and the 
control of our activities. Its common-sense ap- 
peal possesses a high value for us, whatever the 


THE WILL TO WIN 223 


outcome of the metaphysical discussions of some 
of the psychologists. The statements in this 
chapter, for instance, regarding the ‘‘willing’’ 
phases of our lives, would still have a decided 
practical value, I think, even if it should be found 
that some of the psychologists are correct in their 
assumptions that a human being really does not 
will anything, that he has no personality, that his 
body itself is all the soul he has, that all his life 
is a mere succession of ‘‘conditioned reflexes,’’ 
that he is of a piece with the stone and the clod 
and the raindrop, and not essentially different 
from them; all of which seems to me to be the 
height of absurdity. 

2. The old fatalistic doctrine of determination, 
which denies freedom of will to man, has bobbed 
up again in our day in the new form of ‘‘be- 
haviorism,’’ which makes man a mere machine. 
One of the advocates of this kind of psychology, 
in this country, is John Broadus Watson, who, 
in his ‘‘Psychology from the Standpoint of a Be- 
haviorist,’’ says: ‘‘Psychology from the stand- 
point of the behaviorist is concerned with the 
prediction and control of human action and not 
with an analysis of ‘consciousness.’ The goal of 
psychology is the ascertaining of such data and 
laws that, given the stimulus, psychology can pre- 
dict what the response will be; or, on the other 
hand, given the response, it can specify the nature 
of the effective stimulus.’’ Personally, let me 
say that this aim seems to be a very low aim, if 


224. ‘PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


it be the aim of psychology, and I cannot admit 
that this is the most that can be expected from 
psychology. I have always supposed that the ul- 
timate aim of psychology—and I see no reason 
as yet to believe otherwise—is 1mproved human 
life, and that the real business of the psychologist 
is to develop personality and to make individual 
and social life more effective and more worth 
while. 

3. Perhaps the outstanding opponent of be- 
haviorism among modern psychologists is Wul- 
liam McDougall, of Harvard, who holds that 
psychology is based on observations of three 
kinds, and not one, as the behaviorists hold. He 
says, ‘‘ These three kinds of observation—namely, 
(1) introspection, or the noticing of one’s own ex- 
periences, (2) observation of the conditions or oc- 
casions of experiences, (3) observation of the 
expressions of experiences—are practised by all 
men with some degree of success; and common 
speech embodies many general propositions based 
upon them.’’ Dr. McDougall claims that be- 
haviorism and all other ‘‘mechanistic psycholo- 
gies’? are made possible only by the deliberate 
ignoring of certain essential data, and quotes 
Dr. Watson as saying: ‘‘What has been called 
experience or consciousness may occur or exist 
for all I know or care. But I am not interested 
init. I am concerned only to understand human 
behavior. I know that all behavior is mechan- 
ically determined by reflex processes.’’? Me- 


THE WILL TO WIN 225 


Dougall refuses to adopt this unworthy ‘‘devil- 
may-care’’ attitude of the behaviorist toward 
experience, and believes in ‘‘the mind as some- 
thing which expresses its nature, powers, and 
functions in two ways: (1) the modes of in- 
dividual experience; (2) the modes of bodily ac- 
tivity, the sum of which constitutes the behavior 
of the individual.’’ He believes in the freedom 
of the will as a fact of experience, and says: 
‘‘Volition then becomes the expression of the 
whole personality. The will is character in ac- 
tion.’’ 

4, Dr. Thomas Verner Moore, in his recent 
book, ‘‘Dynamic Psychology,’’? agrees substan- 
tially with McDougall. He condemns behavior- 
ism as extreme and as a one-sided ‘‘outgrowth 
from animal psychology.’’ He says: ‘‘Nor has 
behaviorism been able to attain its goal and pre- 
dict and control behavior. The pure behaviorist 
would have little place in a psychological clinic 
or the schoolroom or the juvenile court, ete. 
Whenever one wishes to understand any of the 
real problems of mental conflict, or penetrate into 
the real causes of the difficulties of life, one has to 
obtain introspections from the patient in trouble. 
His reactions alone will not give the insight into 
his personality that is necessary in order to give 
him the help he needs. Psychology should enable 
us to solve the difficulties of the human race as 
well as to investigate the curve of learning in 
white rats, dogs, cats or human organisms.’’ 


226 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


5). Prof. Moore believes in the freedom of the 
will, and defines it as ‘‘the ability to conceive of 
an end of action, and will the means by which it 
may be attained.’’ He presents a mass of evi- 
dence in support of this view. He says, ‘‘The 
end of human life should be the development of 
the will and intellect so that truth and goodness 
are so interwoven that the good is voluntarily 
chosen by necessity.’’ In presenting the reasons 
why we should believe in the freedom of the will, 
he gives the following three common-sense, prac- 
tical arguments: (1) Every man believes in his 
own responsibility, for laziness, neglect, etc., and 
responsibility involves the power to will. (2) 
Every man holds other beings responsible for 
their actions. Law is built upon this belief in re- 
sponsibility. (3) Every man believes in the 
power of his own initiative. If any one wants a 
position he does not wait for the mechanism of 
the cosmos to pick him up and place him in the 
position that he seeks. No machine has any 
power of initiative. No machine is responsible. 
No man could feel responsible for ‘‘conditioned 
reflexes. ’’ 

6. C.S. Myers, director of the International In- 
stitute of Industrial Psychology, London, in the 
‘‘American Journal of Psychology,’’ January, 
1925, says: ‘‘Behaviorists are in fact physiol- 
_ ogists, observing reactions to stimuli in the intact 
organism, instead of—as in most physiological 
experiments—in isolated organs, tissues, or parts 


THE WILL TO WIN 227 


of systems. They have escaped the difficulty of 
dealing with mental processes by ignoring, if not 
by denying, their existence. Such perversity 
breaks down in actual practice.’’ 

7. For discussions of the will, see McDougall, 
Betts, Colvin. and Bagley, Hollingsworth and 
Poftenberger, Horne, Payot, Moore, Gates, Royce, 
DuBois, Pyle, Saxby, Swift, Dresser, Givler, Hall, 
Pillsbury, Stewart. 

8. For help in public speaking, see Sheffield’s 
‘¢ Joining in Public Discussion,’’ Mosher’s ‘‘A 
Complete Course in Public Speaking,’’ Beve- 
ridge’s ‘‘The Art of Public Speaking,’’ Harring- 
ton and Fulton’s ‘‘Talking Well.’’ 





SELECTED REFERENCES 


Apams, JoHN, 1915, ‘‘Making the Most of One’s 
Mind’’—George H. Doran Company. 

Bacugy, Wiiuiam C. (and Keith, John A. H.), 
1924, ‘‘An Introduction to Teaching’’—The 
Macmillan Company. 

Bennett, ARNOLD, 1923, ‘‘How to Make the Best 
of Life’’—George H. Doran Company. 

Bennett, Henry Hasrman, 1923, ‘‘Psychology 
and Self-Development’’—Ginn and Company. 

Berts, Grorce Herpert, 1906, ‘‘The Mind and Its 
Education’’—D. Appleton and Company. 

Brveriper, ALBERT J., 1924, ‘‘The Art of Public 
Speaking’’—Houghton Mifflin Company. 

Breese, Burris Burr, 1917, ‘‘Psychology’’— 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Brieruey, Susan B., 1923, ‘‘An Introduction to 
Psychology’’—Dodd, Mead and Company. 

Brucsz, H. Apptneton, 1915, ‘‘Sleep and Sleepless- 
ness’’—Little, Brown and Company. 

Brucg, W. S., 1922, ‘‘The Psychology of Christian 
Life and Behavior’’—T. and T. Clark. 

Cazot, RicHarp C., 1914, ‘‘What Men Live By’’— 
Houghton Mifflin Company. | 

Caukins, Mary Wuirton, 1916, ‘‘An Introduction 


to Psychology’’—The Macmillan Company. 
229 


230 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


Campton, Guorce G., 1923, ‘‘Hlements in Thought 
and Kmotion’’—University of London Press. 
Cuetzey, Frank H., 1923, ‘‘The Job of Being a 
Dad’’—W. A. Wilde Company. 

Cuitp, C. M., 1924, ‘Physiological Foundations of 
Behavior’’—Henry Holt and Company. 

Coz, Grorce Apert, 1924, ‘‘What Ails Our 
Youth?’’—Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Cor, Grorce ALBERT, 1924, ‘‘Law and Freedom in 
the School’’—University of Chicago Press. 

Cotumpia AssociaTES IN PuinosopHy, 1924, ‘‘An 
Introduction to Reflective Thinking’’—Hough- 
ton Mifflin Company. 

Cotvin, 8. S. (and Bactey, W. C.), 1924, ‘‘ Human 
Behavior’’—The Macmillan Company. 
Conn, Herpert Wituiam, 1914, ‘‘Social Heredity 
and Social Evolution’’—The Abingdon Press. 
Creic, J. Y. T., 1923, ‘‘The Psychology of Laugh- 
ter and Comedy’’—Dodd, Mead and Company. 
Drarporn, Grorce V., 1918, ‘‘How to Learn HKas- 
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DuBois, Pavu, 1909, ‘‘Self-Control and How to 
Secure [t’’—Funk and Wagnalls Company. 

Dresser, Horatio W., 1924, ‘‘Psychology in The- 
ory and Application’’—Thomas Y. Crowell 
Company. 

Dunuap, Knicut, 1922, ‘Elements of Scientific 
Psychology’’—C. V. Mosby Company. 

EpMan, Irwin, 1920, ‘‘Human Traits and Their 
Social Significance’’—Houghton Mifflin Com- 
pany. 


THE WILL TO WIN 231 


Ex.uiot, Huen, 1922, ‘* Human Character’’—Long- 
mans, Green and Company. 

Exuwoop, Cuarues A., 1917, ‘‘An Introduction to 
Social Psychology’’—D. Appleton and Com- 
pany. 

Fietpine, Wituiam J., 1922, ‘‘The Caveman 
Within Us’’—E. P. Dutton and Company. 

Gates, ArtHur I., 1923, ‘‘Psychology for Stu- 
dents of Hducation’’—The Macmillian Com- 
pany. 

GivLEeR, Roperrt CHEvautt, 1922, ‘‘Psychology’’— 
Harper and Brothers. 

Hawi, G. Stanuey, 1922, ‘‘Senescence’’—D. Ap- 
pleton and Company. 

Harrineton, W. L. (and Futron, M. G.), 1924, 
‘“Talking Well’’—The Macmillan Company. 

HawxkswortTu, Hatuam, 1923, ‘‘The Workshop of 
the Mind’’—The Century Co. 

Haywoop, Cuarues W., 1923, ‘‘Re-creating Human 
Nature’’—Alfred A. Knopf. 

Hess, Herperr W., -1923, ‘‘Creative Salesman- 
ship’’—J. B. Lippincott Company. 

Hoiiinesworty, H. L., 1922, ‘‘Judging Human 
Character’’—D. Appleton and Company. 

Hotuineswortn, H. L. (and Porrensercser, A. T.), 
1917, ‘‘Applied Psychology’’—D. Appleton and 
Company. 

Horne, Herman Harrewu, 1914, ‘‘Psychological 
Principles of Education’’—The Macmillan 
Company. 

Husry, Enmunp Burke, 1924, ‘‘The Psychology 


232 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


and Pedagogy of Reading’’—The Macmillan 
Company. 

Hunt, H. Ernest, 1918, ‘‘Self-training’’—David 
McKay Company. 

Hunter, Water S., 1919, ‘‘General Psychology’’ 
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Kitson, Harry D., 1921, ‘‘How to Use Your 
Mind’’—J. B. Lippincott Company. 

MarsHati, Henry Rutesrs, 1919, ‘‘Mind and Con- 
duct’’—Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

McDoveati, Wittam, 1908, ‘‘An Introduction to 
Social Psychology’’—John W. Luce. 

McDoveati, Wiuuiam, 1923, ‘‘Outline of Psychol- 
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Moore, T'Homas Verner, 1924, ‘‘ Dynamic Psychol- 
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MosHer, JosepH A., 1924, ‘‘A Complete Course in 
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NorswortHy, N. (and Wuitiey, M. T.), 1918, 
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Ocpurn, Wituiam Frevpine, 1922, ‘‘Social 
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Paton, Stewart, 1921, ‘‘Human Behavior’’— 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Patri, AnceLo, 1917, ‘‘A Schoolmaster of the 
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Patri, AnaELo, 1922, ‘‘Child Training’’—D. Ap- 
pleton and Company. 

Patrick, Grorcr T. W., 1916, ‘‘The Psychology of 
Relaxation’’—Houghton Mifflin Company. 


THE WILL TO WIN 233 


Patrick, Grorce T. W., 1920, ‘‘The Psychology of 
Social Reconstruction’’—Houghton Mifflin Com- 
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Payot, Juss, 1921, ‘‘ Will Power and Work’’— 
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Pinispury, W. B., 1922, ‘‘Fundamentals of Psy- 
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Piatt, Caries, 1921, ‘‘The Psychology of 
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Pyiz, W. H., 1921, ‘‘The Psychology of Learning’’ 
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Rosinson, JAMES Harvey, 1921, ‘‘The Mind in the 
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Saxsy, I. B., 1921, ‘‘Education of Behavior’’— 
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SEVERN, EXLizaBetH, 1917, ‘‘The Psychology of Be- 
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234 PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP 


TraLtLE, Henry Epwarp, 1924, ‘‘Dynamics of 
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Watuias, Granam, 1919, ‘‘The Great Society’’— 
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Wurerte, Guy M., 1916, ‘‘How to Study Effec-. 
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WoopwortH, Rosert §8., 1921, ‘‘Psychology, a 
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Woopworra, Rosert 8§., 1922, ‘‘ Dynamic Psychol- 
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THE END 











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